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Admiral  Wilson 


OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 


The  Yankee  Fleet  in  French  Waters 
as  Seen 

By 

REGINALD  WRIGHT  KAUFFMAN 

Accredited  Correspondent  with  the  United  States  Navy; 
Member  of  La  Societe  Academique  d'Histoire,  France 


"WE'RE  READY  NOW!" 


ILLUSTRATED  FROM  PHOTOGRAPHS 


4yi  Vi  ^  r-. 


INDIANAPOLIS 

THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright  191 8 
The  Bobbs-Merrill  Company 


PRESS  or 

BRAUNWORTH   tt  CO. 

BOOK  MANUFACTURERS 

BROOKLVN.    N.    V. 


To 
Rear-Admiral  H.  B.  Wilson, 

To  the  Members  of  his  devoted  Staff 

and 

To  all  the  gallant  officers  and  men  of  the  U.  S.  Naval  Forces 
Based  on  France,  so  largely  through  whose  great  bravery 
and  unremitting  hard  work  it  has  been  possible  to  trans- 
port an  army  to  Europe  and  maintain  it  there. 


PREFACE 

Whatever  the  faults  of  this  book,  there  is  in  it  no 
error,  no  misstatement  and  no  omission  justly 
chargeable  to  any  lack  of  facilities  on  the  part  of  the 
author,  or  to  any  restraint  on  the  part  of  the  officers 
and  men  by  whom  those  facilities  were  supplied. 
Than  that  accorded  me,  nobody  could  have  had  a 
better  opportunity  for  observing  the  wonderful 
work  of  our  Navy  along  the  French  coast. 

The  courtesy  shown  me  began  with  the  moment 
of  my  arrival  at  the  town  that  serves  as  the  head- 
quarters-port, and  has  not  since  ceased.  In  addition 
to  personal  kindnesses  and  verbal  instructions,  I  was 
given  a  "blanket"  set  of  credentials  that  were 
headed  by  the  following  letter : 

U.  S.  Naval  Forces  Operating  in 
European  Waters ; 

U.  S.  S.  ,  Flagship. 

,   France ; 

17th  April,  1918. 

From :   Commander  U.  S.  Naval  Forces  in  France. 

To:    All  Forces. 

Subject:    Accredited  Correspondent. 

1.  Mr.  Reginald  Wright  Kauffman  is  visiting 
U.  S.  Naval  Bases  on  the  coast  of  France  in  the 
capacity  of  an  accredited  correspondent.  The  Com- 
mander U.  S.  Naval  Forces  in  France  desires  that  he 
be  given  every  opportunity  for  acquiring  information 
for  publication. 

(Signed)        J.  Halligan,  Jr., 

Chief  of  Staff. 


PREFACE 

That  brief  missive  opened  every  door — or  ought 
I  to  say  "every  porthole"  ?  It  was  sufficient  to  take 
me  to  sea  in  troopship-convoying  destroyers  and 
submarine-hunting  converted-yachts  and  up  in  the 
air  in  observation-balloons  and  hydroaeroplanes.  It, 
and  the  good  will  that  preceded  and  followed  it, 
secured  me  opportunities  to  live  with,  and  work 
with,  for  months  together,  officers  of  every  grade 
and  men  of  every  rating,  and  there  was  almost  no  re- 
striction put  upon  what  I  cared  to  report  thereof. 

"The  only  thing  that  you  may  not  write  about," 
said  Admiral  Wilson,  in  a  conversation  elsewhere 
referred  to,  "are  dates  of  sailing  and  the  names  of 
ships  in  active  service.  Don't  hesitate  to  find  fault 
if  you  feel  so  moved.  The  Navy  has  nothing  to 
hide,  and  if  there  is  anything  wrong  about  it,  we 
want  it  known." 

"If  you  write  with  discretion  and  ordinary  com- 
mon sense,"  said  the  chief  base-censor  to  me,  "I  shall 
have  nothing  to  delete." 

Such  words  as  these,  and  the  scope  of  the  facili- 
ties accorded,  were  not  only  welcome ;  they  were  also 
surprising.  I  found  that  a  journalist  working  with 
the  Navy  was  in  the  position  of  a  guest  of  a  gentle- 
man in  that  gentleman's  house. 

It  will  be  seen,  therefore,  that  all  the  faults  of  this 
book  are  mine  alone.  It  is  true  that  the  chapters  on 
the   office-work,   the   destroyers   and   the   "Suicide 


PREFACE 

Fleet"  were  written  abroad  and  censored — or, 
rather,  passed  uncensored — over  there.  Much  of  the 
rest  of  the  volume  was,  however,  written  after  my 
return  home;  in  that  portion  I  have  tried  to  con- 
form— and  I  am  assured  that  I  have  succeeded — 
with  the  Navy's  censorship-rules,  a  necessary  and  in 
almost  every  particular  a  reasonable  body  of  pre- 
cept ;  but  it  is  possible  that,  although  the  entire  text 
has  since  been  "passed"  by  the  departmental  censor 
at  Washington  as  free  from  any  matter  which  might 
be  dangerous  in  enemy-hands,  I  may  have  been  lat- 
terly guilty  of  some  purely  technical  slips  that  the 
Navy  Department  had  not  the  time  to  correct,  but 
that  Commander  Tisdale,  the  base-censor  in  France, 
would,  in  our  personal  interviews,  have  had  oppor- 
tunity to  call  to  my  attention.  It  is  for  these,  if  they 
exist,  that  I  beg  indulgence. 

Of  my  gratitude  to  the  American  Naval  Forces 
based  on  France,  and  of  my  admiration  for  them, 
this  book  is  an  imperfect  expression;  so  little  has 
been  written  of  them  that  three-quarters  of  America 
is  ignorant  of  their  work;  and  yet,  but  for  them — 
and  for  the  similar  duties  performed  in  lesser  de- 
gree by  their  brothers  convoying  such  of  our  troops 
as  go  to  Europe  by  way  of  England — we  could  not, 
to-day,  have  or  maintain  an  army  on  the  western 
front.  Another  debt  of  thanks  that  I  hasten  to 
acknowledge  is  one  for  permission  to  rewrite  and 


PREFACE 

republish  some  parts  of  this  sketch  that  previously 
appeared  in  the  London  Spectator  and  other  maga- 
zines— and  in  a  syndicate  of  newspapers  that  I  rep- 
resented during  a  part  of  the  present  war — a  syndi- 
cate formed  by  the  Philadelphia  North  American 
and  from  time  to  time  including,  in  addition  to  that 
journal,  the  Baltimore  Sun,  the  Boston  Post,  the 
Chicago  Herald,  the  Los  Angeles  Times,  the  New 
York  World,  the  Pittsburgh  Dispatch,  the  St.  Louis 
Globe-Democrat  and  the  Seattle  Post-Intelligencer. 

R.  W.  K. 

Columbia,  Pennsylvania. 
3d  October,  1918. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


CHAPTER 

PART  ONE 

DICING  WITH  DEATH 

I    Sailing  With  the  Suicide  Fleet    ....  1 

II    The  College  Kids— and  Their  Shipmates     .  17 

III  Perils  of  the  Deep 41 

PART  two 
ROMANCE  ASHORE 

IV  The  Spider  in  His  Web 59 

V    The  Men  Behind  the  Ships 69 

VI    Adventure    by    Wireless 80 

PART   THREE 

SCOTCHING  THE  SUBMARINE 

VII    In  THE  Name  of  the  Lord  I  Will  Destroy  Them  94 

VIII    On  Board  a  Destroyer 106 

IX    The  Truth  About  the  Submarine     ....  122 

PART  four 
TAKING  CHANCES 

X    Up  in   the  Air 134 

XI    Two   Hard   Jobs ISO 

1 :  The  Observation-Balloons 
2:  Shut-Ins 
XII    The  Blow-Up  Men  and  a  Mend-Up  Mother    .     168 

XIII  Marines  Ashore 182 

XIV  Base  Hospital        203 

part  five 
ADMIRALS  A&- 

XV    Fire!         224 

XVI    The  Pluckiest  Man  Alive 234 

XVII    The  Soul  of  the  Sailor    .......    243 


Now,  Mr.  Wall  of  Wall  St.,  he  built  himself  a  yacht, 
And  he  built  that  yacht  for  comfort  and  for  speed; 

He  didn't  mean  that  it  shoidd  go 

Beyond  a  hundred  miles  or  so; 

He  wanted  something  made  for  show, 
Where  he  could  drink  and  feed. 

Then  Uncle  Sam'l  luent  to  zvar  and  hadn't  any  boats, 
Or  not  enough  to  guard  the  stormy  green, 

And  so  he  said  to  Mr.  Wall: 

"I'll  take  your  six-feet-ovcr-all 

And  set  it  out  to  get  the  call 
Upon  the  submarine." 

"A  cruising- fighter?   Never!"  (The  experts  chorused 
that.) 
"She'll  sink  before  she's  half-way  out  to  France;" 
But  Sam  cut  out  her  bathtubs  white. 
He  painted  her  a  perfect  fright 
And  loaded  her  with  dynamite: 
Says  he:  "I'll  take  a  chance." 

"Good  night!"  said  Wall  of  Wall  St.;  the  experts  said 
it,  too; 
But  Uncle  Sam  zvas  sot  and  sibylline; 
His  little  plan,  it  zvarn't  a  josh, 
Wall's  boat's  as  dry's  a  mackintosh; 
She  fights,  b'gum;  what's  more,  b'gosh. 
She  gits  the  submarine! 

— Easter-Eggs. 


OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

PART  ONE 

Dicing  With  Death 

CHAPTER  I 

SAILING  WITH  THE  SUICIDE  FLEET 

THERE  was  a  broad  streak  of  moonlight 
splashed  across  a  leaden  sea,  and,  all  around 
that  vast  ampitheatre,  circular  walls  of  ebony. 
Nothing  but  the  gently  rippling  waves  cut  by  a  sin- 
gle road:  the  whole  world  seemed  as  it  must  have 
been  when,  before  man,  the  light  of  the  night  first 
came  upon  the  darkness  that  brooded  over  the  face 
of  the  waters. 

Slowly  a  black  shape  lumbered  into  the  illum- 
inated track,  moving  with  the  clumsiness  of  an  ante- 
diluvian monster.  A  prow  poked  forward,  a  fun- 
nel followed :  the  whole  hull  of  a  merchant  steamer 
was  there. 

Then  something  else  appeared — a  mere  stick 
dancing  upright  in  the  little  waves  with  the  monster 
between  it  and  the  moon.  Appeared  and  disap- 
peared and  appeared  again. 

1 


2  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

The  monster  gave  a  frightened  scream;  the 
scream  of  a  jangled  bell.  It  tried  to  turn  away  and 
run;  it  was  in  mortal  terror  of  that  fragile  stick 
among  the  waves.  The  stick  danced  with  a  glee  de- 
moniac :  it  seemed  to  laugh  at  the  monster. 

What  followed,  followed  swifter  than  the  telling; 
it  happened  in  exactly  thirty  seconds.  A  tiny  boat 
— a  boat  not  one-fifth  the  size  of  the  terrified  mon- 
ster; a  boat  grotesquely  painted  like  a  harlequin — 
pounced  out  of  the  darkness,  blazed  twice  from  fore 
and  aft  at  the  stick,  twisted  as  a  coin  on  edge  twists 
when  flicked  by  a  human  finger,  jumped  directly 
over  the  stick  as  the  stick  dove  below  the  water; 
passed  over  the  spot  where  the  stick  had  been — and 
something  glinted  from  the  stern  of  the  little  boat, 
and,  just  as  she  raced  clear,  there  came  a  detonation 
that  shook  the  rescued  monster  as  a  rat  is  shaken  by 
a  terrier,  and  churned  the  silver  sea  into  hissing 
suds. 

Bubbles  came  up.  A  thick  scum  of  oil  appeared 
where  the  demon  stick  had  danced.  But  the  stick 
did  not  come  up  again. 

"The  United  States  Patrol  Squadron  Based  on 
the  Fleet  in  European  Waters" — the  Easter  Egg 
Flotilla — the  Suicide  Club — had  saved  another 
cargo-ship  and  sunk  another  German  submarine. 

That  is  one  example,  and  one  only,  of  the  sort  of 
work  that  has  been  done  by  one  division  of  our  Navy 
of  which  the  American  public  has  had  little  news : 
the  originally  christened  "Mosquito  Fleet  Abroad," 


WITH    THE    SUICIDE    FLEET  3 

wherewith  I  early  had  the  privilege  of  sailing. 
Every  "gob" — that  is  to  say,  every  sailor — knew 
this  fleet  and  wondered  at  its  work — and  nobody 
else  was,  for  a  long  time,  permitted  to  know;  yet 
there  is  not  a  pilot  along  the  French  coast  but  will 
tell  you  that,  within  six  months  after  the  arrival  of 
the  Mosquito  Flotilla,  the  S.  O.  S.  calls  were  re- 
duced by  more  than  half. 

Where  these  sea-wasps  operated,  how  their  ex- 
plosives were  composed  and  how  discharged,  when 
and  by  what  means  they  received  news  of  the  sub- 
marines' movements — these  are  matters  that,  if 
published,  might  give  aid  to  the  enemy.  But  enough 
may  be  told  to  make  clear  the  courageous  work  of 
a  branch  of  the  service  that  deserves  as  much  pub- 
licity and  praise  as  has  been  given  to  soldiers,  tanks 
and  aeroplanes. 

The  job  of  the  Suicide  Club  was  to  convoy  trans- 
ports and  supply-ships  through  the  dangerous  areas, 
and  to  chase  that  craft  which  makes  its  reputation 
by  blows  below  the  belt ;  but,  though  they  had  a  two- 
fold duty,  they  faced,  constantly,  dangers  manifold. 
Yellow  dirigibles  might  hover  above  them  and  their 
wards  for  a  few  miles  of  their  course  or  all  of  it, 
hydroaeroplanes  and  tug-towed  observation-balloons 
might  lend  the  aid  that  regulations  allowed :  peril 
was  unremitting;  their  orders  were  to  hunt  peril. 
Was  a  given  field  reported  swept  of  mines?  The 
"eggs"  that  a  Boche  mine-layer  "lays"  can  be  placed 
deep  in  the  seas  and  governed,  by  soluble  caps,  to 


4  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

rise  twenty-four  hours  later.  Was  this  course  or 
that  known  to  be  clear  of  submarines?  Then  it  was 
in  the  other,  the  infested  course,  that  the  Suicide 
Club  was  most  required. 

There  is  nothing  heroic  in  their  appearance;  there 
is  everything  grotesque.  To  obtain  the  lowest  visi- 
bility, they  are  painted  hysterically,  as  if  by  some 
futurist  in  eternity.  Perhaps  the  largest  is  of  seven 
hundred  tons  gross,  measures  one  hundred  and 
thirty  feet  on  the  water  and  draws  but  thirteen  feet. 
Certainly  most  of  them  were  once  the  swiftest  and 
most  seaworthy  pleasure  yachts  in  America,  in 
w^hich  refrigerating-plants  have  given  place  to  am- 
munition-rooms and  ladies'  boudoirs  to  sleeping 
quarters  of  sooty  men. 

It  was  to  such  a  boat  that  I  was  invited,  not  one 
of  the  Poga-boats,  otherwise  known  as  "Spit-kids" 
— which  is  Navy  for  the  happily  obsolete  cuspidor — 
but  to  quite  the  smallest  vessel  in  which  it  has  even 
been  my  fortune  to  sail  the  high  seas — yet  we  car- 
ried, or  crowded,  seventy  men.  Moreover,  in  rough 
weather  we  had  a  roll  of  forty-seven  degrees,  and 
if  you  don't  believe  it,  you  should  come  aboard  and 
watch  the  inclinometre. 

"Four-Stripes"  (it  is  thus  irreverently,  but  no  less 
loyally,  that  the  crew,  with  an  eye  to  his  insignia, 
speak  of  their  Captain,  just  as  they  call  a  lieutenant- 
commander  "Two-and-a-Half,"  and  a  junior  lieu- 
tenant "Dot  -  and  -  Carry  -  One")  —  Four  -  Stripes 
showed  all  that  was  to  be  shown,  from  the  "pills" 


WITH    THE    SUICIDE    FLEET  5 

with  which  the  submerged  submarine  is  treated — 
pills  known  by  the  initial  letters  of  their  component 
explosives — to  the  bridge,  whereof  I  was  given  the 
freedom.  He  told  me  of  torpedoed  steamers'  boats 
with  dead  men  in  them — not  always  dead  from  expo- 
sure; of  many  men  in  life-preservers  picked  up  after 
almost  incredible  hours  in  the  water;  but  he  spoke 
only  under  compulsion  of  his  own  experiences,  and 
he  mentioned  with  a  smile  the  reason  for  isolating 
some  rescued  sailors  from  his  crew : 

"They  weren't  very  clean  men,"  he  explained. 
"They  were  covered  with  what  our  boys  call  shirt- 
squirrels." 

The  chief  quartermaster  approached  the  navi- 
gator : 

"Twelve  o'clock,  sir,  and  the  chronometre  is 
wound."  He  didn't  say  "the  chronometre  is  round," 
as  the  traditional  green  man  does. 

The  announcement  was  repeated  to  the  Captain. 
"Make  it  so,"  said  he. 

"Sound  eight  bells,"  said  the  navigating  officer 
to  the  chief  quartermaster. 

One  of  the  forecastle  men  came  up  to  me; 

"Mess-gear  set,  sir.  Will  you  take  chow  with  us, 
sir?" 

I  took  it,  and  I  have  rarely  eaten  a  better  cooked 
meal,  or  a  more  enlightening  one.  We  fed  in  a  dark 
hole  among  updrawn  canvas  bunks ;  when  anything 
went  wrong,  it  was  "pardon  me,"  and  there  was 
some  discussion  of  the  technical  veracity  of  Kip- 


6  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

ling's  sea-verse;  but  the  immediate  vocabulary  was 
entirely  local.  Can  you,  gentle  reader,  translate 
"Put  a  fair  wind  behind  the  lighthouse?''  I  can — 
now;  it  means  "pass  the  salt-cellar."  And,  though 
you  may  understand  "spuds"  and  guess  that  "red 
lead"  is  catsup,  which  it  hugely  resembles,  and  that 
"shoestrings"  are — or  is — spaghetti,  I  venture  to 
doubt  that  your  perspicacity  would  divine  that 
"slumgullion"  is  beef  stew;  "railroad  hash,"  a  mix- 
ture of  "spuds"  and  large  lumps  of  beef;  "canned 
Bill,"  canned  corned  beef;  "MuUigan,"  shredded 
Bill  and  onions,  and  that  "fish-eyes"  are  tapioca 
pudding. 

You  think  that  these  men  spun  wild  yarns  of  ad- 
venture for  my  credulous  ears?  They  didn't;  they 
are  living  adventure — what  they  talked  about  was 
coaling  ship. 

"On  a  boat  like  this,"  said  one  of  them,  "every 
man's  a  'swipe'  " — by  which  he  meant  a  coal-passer 
— "for  we  have  to  coal  by  hand.  We  do  it  each  time 
we  come  into  port.  Passing  coal!  Some  of  us 
were  more  used  to  selling  bonds,  but  we're  all  on  to 
the  job  by  now.  We  started  in  the  first  day  aboard. 
The  barges  come  up,  one  on  each  side,  and  on  each 
side  there  are  four  men  shovelling  into  the  baskets, 
four  men  passing  the  baskets  overhead  to  the  deck 
— you  have  to  heave  them  three  feet  above  your 
head — two  passing  on  deck  and  two  dumping; 
twenty- four  in  all.  We  coaled  from  7  :30  a.  m.  to 
11  p.  M.  one  hundred  and  seven  tons,  and  we  did  it 


WITH   THE   SUICIDE   FLEET  7 

at  an  average  rate  of  two  hundred  baskets  in  nine 
minutes,  too.  Get  on  to  my  eyes ;  don't  I  look  like 
a  movie-idol?" 

I  had  noticed  this  before :  at  the  lids'  edge,  at  the 
lashes'  roots,  each  man's  eyes  were  delicately 
blacked  as  if  by  a  makeup-pencil.  It  was  the  resid- 
ium  of  coal  that  none  can  remove. 

"When  you're  all  in  from  passing  coal,  and  black 
from  hair  to  toenails,  you  quit  and  swab-up  the 
decks ;  Field-day,  we  call  it,  scrubbing-up  ships  and 
clothes ;  'piping  down' ;  I  had  some  sympathy  for 
the  Dutchman  before  I  got  on  this  job,  but  after 
coaling  ship  for  the  first  day,  they'd  got  my  an- 
gora; it  was  'Kill  the  kaiser'  for  me." 

Who  are  these  boys?  The  strangest  of  mixtures. 
Most  of  them  were  bred  to  the  sea,  but  though  all 
are  good  sailors  now,  some,  at  the  start,  were  ama- 
teur yachtsmen,  and  one  or  two  didn't  know,  as  they 
put  it,  "which  the  sharp  end  of  the  ship  was."  Eighty 
per  cent,  of  our  crew  were  old  hands,  but  we  had  a 
Philadelphia  policeman  and  a  Texan  ranger:  our 
first  boatswain's  mate  had  his  sheepskin  from  Cor- 
nell ;  there  was  a  Lehigh  senior  in  the  forecastle  and 
a  Harvard  postgraduate  assisting  in  the  radio-room. 

"She  has  a  good  roll,"  I  sputtered  to  one  of  the 
men  on  watch  as  I  "went  up  topside,"  which  is  to 
say,  as  I  clambered  to  the  bridge. 

"Yes,  sir,"  was  that  common  seaman's  answer. 
"She  always  had  that  reputation  as  a  yacht.  My 
parents  told  me  so :  they  used  to  cruise  in  her." 


8  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

A  moment  later,  below  me,  a  petty  officer  was 
shouting  to  a  grimy  gob : 

"Hey "  (and  the  tar's  name  was  that  of  one  of 

America's  best-known  yachtsmen)  ;  "that  you  with 
them  dirty  shoes  muddying  up  this  deck  ?  Go  below 
an'  take  'em  off !"  He  turned  to  me :  "You  see,  the 
Black  Gang — that's  the  stokers  an'  men  that  works 
around  the  kettles,  the  engines,  I  mean — they  comes 
up  for  a  breath  o'  air  in  their  'steamin'-shoes,'  the 
shoes  they  wear  at  work,  an'  they're  all  lousy  with 
oil  an'  coal." 

"Bathing  in  a  bucket !"  I  heard  that  yachtsman  re- 
mark :  "Two  quarts  of  water  twice  a  day !  I'll  never 
get  used  to  5  :30  in  the  morning  and  cold  water  on 
my  feet."  But  he  laughed  as  he  said  it,  and  there 
wasn't  a  more  able  worker  aboard. 

Another  hand  put  it  to  me  in  this  fashion : 

"So  many  days  afloat,  and  so  many  in  port,  while 
another  section  of  the  fleet's  at  sea;  that's  the  rule 
here,  and  when  you're  at  sea  with  these  boats,  you're 
on  the  job  every  minute.  It's  'Merry  Christmas; 
get  busy,'  and  'Knock  off  work — and  carry  pig-iron.' 
All  the  time,  if  there's  nothing  else  to  do,  you  can 
'break  out' — I  mean  you  can  get — a  pot  of  red  lead 
and  paint  a  protecting  coat  of  it  over  some  of  the 
ironwork.  When  we're  in  harbour,  we  have  our 
Rope- Yarn  Sunday,  which  is  what  we  call  our  mid- 
week half-holiday;  but,  except  for  liberty-parties 
ashore,  that's  about  our  limit.  Afloat,  the  limit  of 
work  is  the  limit  of  endurance ;  but  that's  what  we're 


The  bridge  of  one  of  the  suicide  fleet 


fe 


WITH    THE    SUICIDE    FLEET  9 

here  for,  and  even  if  we  don't  get  any  brass  bands 
and  cheering  crowds  in  this  service,  we're  not  kick- 
ing." 

"Rise  and  shine,"  "Show  a  leg,"  "Up  all  ham- 
mocks," "Heave  out  and  lash  to,"  "Grab  a  sock"— 
these  are  all  Suicide  Fleet  slang  for  what  the  soldiers 
call  reveille ;  but  reveille  does  not  begin  the  mosquito- 
man's  day,  because  the  day  of  the  Mosquito  Flotilla 
is  continuous.  Once  in  the  schedule's  cycle,  a  man  is 
in  the  "Admiral's  Watch" — passing  an  entire  night 
abed — but  that  luxury  is  inevitably  balanced  by  the 
"Admiral's  Watch  with  the  Belly  Out,"  which  is  the 
watch  that  runs  from  midnight  until  four. 

You  are  convoying  merchantmen  and  transports, 
and  these  ply  on  forever;  you  are  chasing  subma- 
rines, and  the  submarine  is  always  at  his  task ;  there- 
fore, your  work  is  endless,  and  endless  the  strain  of 
it.  In  every  weather,  bridge  and  decks  are  hned 
with  lookouts,  day  and  night;  night  and  day  the  gun 
crews  stand  to  their  guns,  and  from  sun  to  sun  the 
stokers  shovel  and  the  "greasers"  oil ;  and  the  long 
monotony  is  a  monotony  of  which  every  slow  mo- 
ment may  well  be  your  last.  You  are  there  to  watch 
and  rescue;  there  is  none  that  will  watch  or  rescue 
you. 

Scouring  the  horizon  with  aching  eyes,  while  the 
sickening  deck  heaves  under  them,  while  the  sun 
blisters  or  the  icy  rain  cuts  at  their  faces  and  eats 
through  sou'wester,  sheepskin-jacket  and  hip-boots 
— looking,  looking,  always  looking — seated  in  the 


10  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

close  radio-room  with  the  tumult  of  clashing  calls 
pricking  at  eardrums  and  stabbing  brain-centres — 
listening,  listening,  always  listening — penned  in  the 
stinking  sweat  and  heat  of  the  clanging,  crowded 
fire-room,  where  the  air  is  so  full  of  dust  that  it 
passes  to  the  lungs  in  gulps  and  lumps — with  strain- 
ing naked  back  tossing  in  coal — always  feeding  the 
never-surfeited  fires,  always  knowing  that,  at  the 
next  toss,  the  ocean's  top  may  descend  and  crush 
them  under  tons  of  water:  these  are  the  men  of  the 
Suicide  Fleet.  At  sea,  they  never  sleep  with  their 
clothes  off,  never  work  but  with  their  life-preservers 
bulkily  on.  Lonely,  determined,  unpraised,  unknown 
— and  then  a  few  days  in  an  alien  port,  where  the 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  was  their  first  hope  of  social  salvation; 
that  registers  their  emotional  experience. 

"The  minute  they  get  ashore,  their  one  object 
seems  to  be  to  buy  everything  in  sight,"  an  Association 
worker  told  me.  "They  all  want  to  get  rid  of  their 
'bunker-plates'  (the  French  five  and  ten  centime 
pieces),  and  they're  spoiling  the  town's  children  by 
tossing  these  coppers  away.  Many  of  them  know 
the  French  language,  which  is  complex ;  none  knows 
the  French  money,  which  is  simplicity  itself." 

One  of  them  on  our  boat  has  let  me  read  and  make 
extracts  from  his  diary — they  have  the  lonely  man's 
passion  for  keeping  a  journal.  "You  won't  find 
anything  in  it,"  he  said;  but  some  things  I  found 
that,  originally  set  down  in  utter  unconsciousness 
of  their  dramatic  values,  seem  to  me  to  indicate  bet- 


WITH    THE    SUICIDE    FLEET         U 

ter  than  anything  any  outsider  could  say  the  spirit 
of  the  service.    I  quote  them  now  : 

"April  5th. — President  Wilson  issued  a  proclama- 
tion calling  for  volunteers  for  the  army  and  navy. 
I  guess  I  ought  to  go.    .    .    . 

"May  5th. — Some  of  our  fellows  are  quitting  col- 
lege to  go  to  the  officers'  training  camps,  but  I  feel 
as  if  it  would  be  better  to  get  in  right  away,  even  if 
I  do  have  to  go  as  an  enlisted  man.    .    .    . 

"May  18th.— Bifif,  'K'  and  I  came  from  Phila- 
delphia to  New  York  to  enlist  in  the  Mosquito  Fleet, 
which  is  to  convoy  boats  and  chase  subs.  Biff  was 
the  only  one  to  pass  the  physical  exam.,  and  after 
being  rejected,  I  went  back  on  the  afternoon  train. 

"June  25th. — I  came  here  (New  York)  to  have 
an  operation  so  as  to  be  eligible  for  service.    .    .    ."' 

Another  date,  at  sea:  "The  engine-room  force, 
with  which  I  am  quartered  amidships,  is  a  very  mot- 
ley crowd.  What  most  of  them  lack  in  real  tough- 
ness they  try  to  make  up  in  conversation :  the  really 
tough  ones  are  the  less  objectionable,  as  is  usually 
the  case,  but  they're  all  made  of  the  right  stuff.  We 
had  'abandon  ship'  drill  to-day :  I'm  stationed  on  the 
bridge  and  in  the  last  boat  to  go,  so  if  we  do  get 
smashed,  I'll  be  pretty  sure  to  have  a  chance  to  see 
all  that  happens." 

Another  :  "Now  I  know  what  real  fog-banks  are. 
This  morning,  when  I  got  up  at  3  :30  to  take  the  4-8 
watch,  we  couldn't  see  fifty  feet  ahead  of  us  and 
were  in  a  driving  rain.    I  got  into  trouble  right  off 


12  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

the  bat.  We  had  been  ordered  by  the  flagship  to 
take  'dipsey'  soundings  every  thirty  minutes.  At 
4:15,  I  got  ready  to  take  one  by  the  Lord  Kelvin 
machine,  with  B —  and  G —  helping.  I  let  the  lead 
go  over  the  side  and  told  B —  to  pay  out  the  line 
easily.  He  promptly  let  go  the  handle,  and  the 
v^'hole  thing  (400  fathoms)  went  overboard  before 
we  could  check  it.  We  were  nearly  an  hour  getting 
it  in,  and  the  wire  nearly  cut  my  hands  to  pieces. 

K sighted  a  German  sub    this    p.    m.,  which 

turned  out  to  be  a  whale." 

Another:     "Yesterday    Harold    R ,    in    the 

radio-room,  intercepted  an  S.  O.  S.  signal  from  some 
vessel  that  gave  its  name  in  code,  and  nothing  more. 
As  she  didn't  send  her  position,  we  couldn't  do  any- 
thing. This  morning,  we  passed  bits  of  wreckage 
and  four  empty  life-preservers." 

Three  entries  follow:  "Some  storm!  Wind 
about  100  miles  an  hour.  Maybe  she  doesn't  roll! 
Eating  is  surely  a  problem.  The  dishes  will  not  stay 
on  the  table,  and  most  of  the  time  is  spent  dodging 
cups  of  coffee.  It  is  an  interesting  game  to  divert 
food  and  drink  down  one's  neck  inside  instead  of 
out,  and  eternal  vigilance  is  the  price  of  a  stomach- 
ful  instead  of  a  lapful.    .    .    . 

"All  but  six  of  the  crew  have  been  sick.  For 
three  days  we  have  had  our  meals  standing  up, 
hanging  on  by  one  hand  to  a  stanchion  or  post  and 
to  a  plate  of  sandwiches  with  the  other.  Tables  and 
benches  are  useless.    .    .    . 


WITH    THE    SUICIDE    FLEET         13 

"The  attitude  of  the  boys  is  pecuHar.  All  through 
the  stress  and  strain  of  the  storm  and  the  uncer- 
tainty of  our  weathering  it,  the  talk  was  not  about 
the  storm,  or  even  submarines,  but  about  food." 

In   port:      "The  came  in  to-day.      They 

picked  up  seventeen  survivors  of  a  torpedoed  ship 
and  passed  a  small  boat  with  four  corpses  in  the 
bottom.  .  .  .  One  of  my  friends  is  in  trouble: 
he  wrote  home  to  his  girl  and  home  to  his  dad,  and 
now  comes  a  letter  from  his  girl  saying  she  got  the 
letter  meant  for  his  dad,  and  what  his  dad  will  say, 
God  only  knows.  That's  one  of  the  tro^ibles  with 
having  to  post  your  letters  unsealed  for  censorship. 
If  the  censor's  too  tired,  he  may  put  them  back  in 
the  wrong  envelopes,  and  maybe  he'll  do  it  anyway 
just  for  a  joke. 

"Another  friend  has  dinner  regularly  on  shore 
with  a  French  family — two  girls  and  mother.  He 
can't  speak  a  word  of  French,  and  they  can  only 
muster  'Good  luck'  when  the  wine  is  negotiated,  and 
'Good  night'  when  adieus  are  said.  The  father  and 
two  brothers  have  been  killed  in  the  war,  and  these 
people  are  most  grateful  to  all  the  Americans  that 
are  coming  to  help  win  it." 

Again :  "Returning  from  liberty,  there  were  too 
many  in  our  whaleboat,  so  about  eight  or  nine  of 
the  men  manned  the  dory.  Just  past  the  chateau,  a 
French  tug  ran  the  dory  down  and  smashed  it.  Two 
of  our  men,  Olkin  and  Babb,  couldn't  swim,  but 
Casey  got  'Oil  Can'  and  Fass  got  Babb."    .    .    , 


14  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

At  sea  again :  "Nothing  exciting  to-day  to  lessen 
the  monotonous  strain  of  being  constantly  on  the 
alert.  One  has  to  notice  the  smallest  things  in  the 
water  and  report  them  immediately  to  the  bridge, 
especially  toward  dark  and  dawn,  when  the  subs 
are  most  active.  Birds  have  a  habit  of  clustering 
around  a  periscope,  and  sharks  often  follow  Fritz, 
looking  for  grub,  so  everything  one  sees  on  the 
surface  must  be  mentioned  at  once." 

The  night  of  the  day  on  which  I  read  that  diary 
was  drawing  to  a  close.  We  had  seen  into  safety 
the  "one-lunger"  —  the  single- funneled  —  tramp, 
which  was  our  particular  care,  and  watched  it  limp 
to  the  haven  where  it  would  be.  ("These  days,"  said 
Four-Stripes,  "they're  putting  every  cripple  in  the 
ocean  if  it  can  go  only  on  crutches.")  Then  we 
turned  about  and  worked  out  of  sight  of  land.  Soon 
a  faint  gray-pink  would  flush  the  east,  but  now,  even 
from  the  bridge  on  which  I  was  standing,  there  was 
visible  only  the  leaden  sea,  splashed  by  a  broad 
streak  of  moonlight,  against  which,  as  we  made  our 
way  toward  it  through  the  darkness,  our  forward 
spars  and  rigging  swayed  in  silhouette. 

"Have  we  any  chance  of  picking  up  a  sub?"  I 
wondered. 

Four-Stripes  explained  that  it  v/asn't  so  much  a 
case  of  picking  up  as  running  down ;  when  we  heard 
of  a  submarine,  we  must  race  toward  it,  and  when 
we  sighted  it,  we  must  pounce  upon  the  spot  where 
it  submerged. 


WITH    THE    SUICIDE    FLEET         15 

"But  I  believe  they  have  orders  to  run  at  sight  of 
us,"  he  said.  "You  see,  we're  so  small  and  so  light- 
draft  as  to  be  a  poor  mark,  and  they  don't  like  what 
they  call  our  'vasser  boom-booms.'"  There  were 
unpublishable  reasons  why,  just  there  and  then,  it 
was  a  little  difficult  to  get  distress  calls.  "But  there 
are  three  submarines  operating  somewhere  near 
here,"  said  Four-Stripes,  "and  of  course  we  officers 
are  just  as  anxious  as  the  men  to  fill  our  bag  with 
them." 

"What's  the  call?"  I  asked,  "the  warning— that 
you  get  when  one's  reported?" 

"That's  no  secret  and  no  code ;  the  subs  know  it 
as  well  as  we  do :  'Alio,  'Alio,  'Alio — and  then  the 
location  in  plain  figures." 

A  speaking-tube  beside  him  uttered  a  faint  twit- 
ter.   He  bent  to  it. 

"That  was  the  radio-room  talking  then,"  said 
Four-Stripes,  as  he  raised  his  face  to  me. 

He  pulled  a  signal  lever;  he  issued  quiet  orders. 
Our  tiny  boat  spun  about  in  the  water ;  men  darted 
silently  out  of  hatches  until  the  deck  was  alive 
with  them,  each  at  his  prescribed  position.  The 
ship  plunged  upon  a  new  tack;  from  prow  to  stem 
the  water  boiled  beside  us, 

"What  was  it,"  I  ventured,  "that  the  radio-room 
had  to  report?" 

"Three  'Alios  and  a  location,"  said  Four-Stripes. 
"We're  racing  for  that  location  now." 


They  coal  us  in  Latin,  they  sivah  up  in  Greek, 
They're  gun'ale-deep  hook-learned,  the  guys! 

You  can't  understand  half  the  language  they  speak. 
They've  tortoise-shell  specks  on  their  eyes; 

But,  once  up  against  it,  they  surely  iiwke  good, 
An'  I'd  back  the  hull  lot  anywhere: 

In  a  squall  or  a  scrap,  be  it  well  understood. 
Them  kids  out  o'  college  is  there! 

— College  Kids. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  COLLEGE  KIDS  AND  THEIR  SHIPMATES 

I  HAVE  said  that  the  personnel  of  the  Suicide 
Fleet  was  composed  of  all  sorts  of  men.  That 
is  true,  but  to  a  great  extent  it  was  composed  of 
men,  young  men  or  men  above  the  draft  age,  who 
might  easily  have  had  a  higher  rank  in  one 
branch  or  other  of  the  service.  They  might,  for  in- 
stance, have  waited  and  gone  to  the  officers'  train- 
ing camps  that  were  everywhere  to  open;  instead, 
however,  they  enlisted  as  common  seamen,  and  now 
they  are  so  serving  while  hundreds  of  their  friends 
are  coming  over  with  commissions  in  the  Army. 

There  is  Vincent  Astor,  serving  as  ensign  on  what 
was  once  his  own  yacht.  There  is  a  lad  from  Ten- 
nessee, who,  writing  his  first  letter  home  and  de- 
scribing the  ocean  to  his  inland  family,  said  that  it 
was  "just  the  same  color  as  Barlowe's  Creek,  but 
wider."  There  is  young  Farwell,  now,  if  you  please, 
deservedly  a  lieutenant-commander,  once  sent  home 
from  Annapolis  because  his  sight  was  too  poor,  and 
then  giving  up  a  newly-acquired  law-practise  in  or- 
der to  take  war-service  on  a  patrol-ship.  I  know  a 
promising  architect,  a  Beaux  Arts  graduate,  whom 
I  discovered  repainting  the  water-worn  side  of  the 
vessel  on  which  he  was  a  member  of  the  Black 

17 


18  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

Gang;  and  of  a  Harvard  senior  I  have  heard  a  vet- 
eran say: 

"See  that  stoop-shouldered  fellow  over  there  by 
the  gun? — He  can't  be  dragged  more  than  twenty 
feet  away  from  it.  Well,  he  used  to  be  the  best 
mathematician  in  his  college  class.  He  wasn't 
aboard  here  a  week  before  we  saw  that  we'd  never 
make  a  sailorman  of  him,  not  in  a  thousand  years; 
but  it  took  us  less  than  the  week  to  see  that  he  did 
have  in  him  the  makings  of  a  perfect  pointer  for 
the  gun-crew.  You  know  what  it  is  to  shoot  at  un- 
known range.  Initial  range,  one,  five,  double  O — 
fifteen  hundred  yards,  you  understand;  scale  five-six 
— deflection.  Then  you  fire  and  make  a  correction, 
basing  your  work  on  your  own  speed  and  the  sub's. 
Well,  anyway,  that  fellow  never  has  to  make  a  cor- 
rection.   He's  a  born  pointer." 

One  afternoon  when  we  had  just  come  into  har- 
bour, and  when,  all  about  us,  were  capering  from 
my  first  cruise  with  the  Suicide  Club,  our  crazily- 
colored  sisters  of  that  Easter  Egg  patrol,  the  quar- 
termaster sauntered  up  and  leaned  beside  me  against 
the  starboard  rail. 

"We've  got  some  college  men  aboard,"  he  said. 
"Of  course,  they'd  all  had  yachting  experience  when 
they  answered  the  President's  call  for  volunteers, 
but  some  our  bred-to-the-service  fellows  were  in- 
clined to  laugh  at  until  a  little  thing  happened  on  the 
way  over.  Now  when  there's  a  hard  thing  to  be 
done,  we  know  the  college  kids  can  do  it. 


THE   COLLEGE   KIDS  19 

"Three  days  out  of  the  port  we  were  making,  a 
fire  started  in  our  port  coal-bunkers.  Water  causes 
such  fires,  you  know;  somebody'd  left  the  hatches 
off,  and  there'd  been  a  shower — away  at  the  bottom 
of  that  pile,  the  coal  was  white  hot  and  going  strong, 
and  we  seventy-two  hard  hours  from  shore.  We 
didn't  dare  put  more  water  on  the  thing,  but  we  got 
up  the  steam  hose,  and  at  least  kept  it  from  gaining 
for  a  day. 

*T  had  the  midnight  to  4  a.  m.  watch  on  the 
bridge.  I  was  there  when,  at  2  :30,  the  starboard 
bunker  blew  out,  showing  the  fire  had  crossed  the 
ship.  We  couldn't  wait  for  steam  that  time;  we 
played  a  good  old  water  hose,  but  inside  of  an  hour 
we  had  three  explosions  over  on  our  port  side — un- 
less we  used  desperate  methods  that  whole  part  of 
the  tub  would  go.  The  Captain  waited  as  long  as  he 
dared,  and  then — ^just  after  breakfast — called  for 
volunteers.  It  was  no  case  for  orders :  what  we  had 
to  have  was  men  that  would  go  right  down  into  that 
furnace  bulging  with  fatal  gas — fellows  that'd  walk 
straight  into  those  lungs  of  death  and  shovel  away 
the  top  coal  so  as  to  uncover  the  burning  core.  That 
was  the  only  way  to  save  the  ship. 

"Well,  sir,  the  first  fellows  to  volunteer  were  the 
college  kids,  and  the  Captain  gave  them  the  job. 

"They  jumped  into  that  hell  in  squads  of  four 
men  and  a  petty  officer  for  each  bunker.  And 
shovel  ?  You  ought  to  've  seen  them !  Each  squad 
was  to  be  down  three  minutes  at  a  time,  and  the 


20  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

men  were  gassed  like  miners.  In  the  first  three  min- 
utes, squad  followed  squad,  because  eleven  of  the 
kids  were  overcome  and  carried  out,  one  by  one,  on 
the  backs  of  the  others.  The  doctor  stood  on  deck 
with  the  pulmotor  and  pumped  them  through;  but 
a  lot  of  them  were  caught  out  of  their  bunks  trying 
to  sneak  back  and  fight  the  gas  again.  It  was  the 
toughest  job  I've  ever  seen  at  sea,  but  those  boys 
did  it;  they  conquered  the  fire  and  saved  the  ship. 

"Since  then  you  don't  hear  much  against  the  col- 
lege kids  in  the  Suicide  Flotilla." 

I  looked  at  the  quartermaster  hard.  Somehow,  in 
spite  of  observable  efforts,  he  had  not  talked  pre- 
cisely like  a  man  that  got  his  first  education  at  sea. 

"How  long  have  you  been  in  the  Navy?"  I  asked. 

He  shifted  an  uneasy  foot. 

"Third  enlistment,"  he  answered. 

I  shot  a  bow  at  a  venture  :  "What's  your  college  ?" 

"Princeton,"  he  said.  "  'Ninety-four,"  he  added, 
and  then,  with  an  almost  boyish  blush :  "But  it  was 
these  kids  I  was  talking  about.  Don't  mention  the 
fact  that  I'm  a  college  man  to  anybody  aboard.  I 
don't  want  any  one  to  think  I'm  putting  on  side." 

That  quartermaster's  little  ship  has  had  its  full 
share  of  adventure.  One  morning,  she  picked  up 
three  small  boats  with  fifty-nine  men  in  them.  One- 
half  of  these  men  were  from  a  ship  that  had  been  tor- 
pedoed a  day  earlier.  They  got  away  and  were  res- 
cued by  a  passing  steamer,  and  they  had  not  been 
aboard  it  twelve  hours  before  it  also  was  torpedoed. 


THE   COLLEGE   KIDS  21 

I  asked  our  Four-Stripes  about  the  treatment  of 
rescued  men — he  had  been  telhng  me  of  his  rescue 
of  some  that  had  been  seventy-two  hours  in  their 
open  boats,  and  how  some  of  these,  having  been 
caught  when  in  the  shower-bath,  were  clad  in  just 
about  nothing  at  all. 

"We  get  them  into  the  drumroom  and  lay  them 
there  above  the  boilers,"  he  told  me,  "generally  with 
their  teeth  chattering  like  a  ship  with  loose  plates  in 
a  storm.  Whenever  we  sight  life-boats,  the  com- 
missary-steward starts  supplies  of  soup  and  coffee. 
Clothes  ?  Well,  my  crew  generally  offers  its  clothes 
until  those  of  the  rescued  men  are  dry,  and,  as  the 
crew's  clothes  are  the  better,  I've  known  instances 
where  the  rescued  men  forgot  to  change  back  to 
their  own  slops  before  going  ashore.  The  living  men 
are  an  easy  enough  proposition,  but  it  ahvays  seems 
tough  to  have  to  race  past  a  boat  full  of  dead  men 
and  not  be  able  to  stop  and  give  them  decent  burial." 

Convoying,  it  seems,  presents  troubles  peculiarly 
its  own,  especially  in  time  of  attack,  v^'hen  the  flo- 
tilla's greatest  difficulty  is  to  prevent  hitting  a  clumsy 
or  frightened  ward.  *Tn  our  last  brush,"  said  the 
Captain,  "we  were  convoying  an  American  merchant- 
man, and  she  kept  her  wits  about  her.  We  were  a 
bit  astern  of  her  at  3  a.  m.  when  a  submarine  came 
up  between  us.  Nine  merchant  skippers  out  of  ten 
would  have  gone  wrong,  but  this  American  swung 
his  boat  to  starboard,  and  so  we  went  to  port  and 
brought  both  our  guns  into  play." 


22  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

"And  did  you  get  the  sub?" 

Four-Stripes  smiled. 

"Perhaps,"  he  answered. 

Once  a  submarine,  driven  from  behind  a  ship 
bringing  up  the  rear  of  a  convoyed  column,  came  up 
a  trifle  ahead  and  blew  out  the  entire  bow  of  her 
victim.  To  give  warning  and  to  call  for  help  up  to 
the  last  minute,  the  whistle  cords  of  these  boats  are 
now  made  with  a  loop  that  may  be  instantly  attached 
to  a  hook  in  the  nearest  wall.  Thus  this  battered 
hulk's  whistle  was  set  to  blowing  at  the  moment  of 
the  explosion,  and  in  only  one  minute  and  forty 
seconds,  she  went  down,  screeching  like  a  gored  le- 
viathan, until  the  inrushing  waters  strangled  her. 
It  was  a  sound  that  no  hearer  is  likely  soon  to  for- 
get, and  that  the  rescued  sixteen  of  the  crew  of 
double  that  number  will  be  sure  to  remember  for- 
ever. 

One  time  the  Emmeline,  that  armed  yacht  on 
which  I  w^as  first  a  guest,  had  in  its  care  a  merchant- 
man with  new  engines  that  he  could  not  slow  down 
to  the  speed  of  the  other  boats  in  the  ocean  caravan. 
He  puzzled  our  captain  by  his  strange  zigzagging, 
and  between  3  and  3  :30  a.  m.  crossed  our  boat's  bow 
at  least  four  times.  A  dangerous  channel  was  at 
hand. 

"If  he  keeps  on,  he'll  go  on  the  L— : —  reefs,"  said 
Four-Stripes.     "Send  him  blinkers." 

The  winking-signal  was  given,  but  apparently  the 


Commander   of    a   coast-patrol   ship.     An   American   type 


THE   COLLEGE    KIDS  23 

merchantman  couldn't  read  it.  He  piled  up  his 
thirty-one  hundred  tons  of  coal  on  that  reef.  The 
little  guardian  stood  by,  and  the  crew  of  twenty- 
nine  was  rescued. 

Often  attacks  from  submarines  are  invited  by 
sheer  wrong-headedness  on  the  part  of  the  ward; 
and  one  instance  of  this  sort  that  I  know  of  was 
furnished,  in  the  case,  I  regret  to  say,  of  an  Amer- 
ican ship.  With  the  descent  of  darkness  she  dis- 
played, to  Four-Stripes'  horror,  a  stern-light  that 
could  be  seen  for  twenty  miles. 

He  signaled :    "Dim  that  stern-light." 

She  replied :     "It's  only  what  we  always  carry." 

Four-Stripes  repeated  his  order.  The  convoyed 
ship  tried  to  argue, 

"If  you  don't  dim  that  stern-light,"  signaled  Four- 
Stripes,  "I'll  blow  it  off  you." 

That  is  the  sort  of  man  that  is  a  captain  in  the 
Suicide  Fleet.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  out  of  the  first 
two  hundred  and  fifty  ships  consigned  to  his  care,  he 
lost  only  three  ? 

Such  officers  command  more  than  their  boats: 
they  command  the  respect  of  their  men,  and  their 
men's  affection.  I  make  this  typical  extract  from  a 
typical  letter;  it  was  not  written  by  one  of  the  "Col- 
lege Kids,"  but  none  of  them  could  have  shown  a 
finer  loyalty : 

".  .  .  .  The  Wanderer  is  a  little  old  yacht.  I 
think  it  is  the  oldest  in  the  service.    Captain  Wil- 


24  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

son.  He  is  a  regular  and  an  Annapolis  man.  A  lit- 
tle quiet  absolutely  unostentatious  person,  but  the 
personification  of  energy. 

"He  has  done  the  most  extraordinary  things.  He 
has  been  in  every  single  mixup.  He  has  seen  lots 
of  submarines.  He  has  answered  radio  calls  from 
all  over. 

"He  is  an  entire  surprise  to  the  French  by  his  up- 
to-date  methods  of  convoying  ships  into  harbour  in 

the  fog.     They  had  four  days  of  fog  at  L in 

which  he  stationed  ships  with  lights  at  each  buoy  so 
that  the  other  ships  could  see  the  course  at  night  and 
thereby  saved  the  congestion  of  a  hundred  ships. 
Concerning  which  the  French  commander  of  the 
port  told  an  American  officer  passing  through  that 
it  had  never  been  done  before. 

"One  time  they  were  out  in  the  English  Channel 
and  they  got  an  SOS  from  a  ship  which  sent  out 
word  it  was  being  shelled  by  a  submarine  on  the  sur- 
face alongside.  Captain  Wilson,  though  six  hours 
away  when  he  picked  up  the  call,  framed  a  mes- 
sage in  English  saying  American  cruiser  coming  im- 
mediately, stand  by  your  ship.  The  submarine  sank 
at  once  and  left  the  ship  and  the  men  who  had  taken 
to  their  boats  returned,  though  the  litde  Wanderer 
did  not  appear  until  the  next  day. 

"When  one  of  the  Naval  Engineers  was  asked  by 
Captain  Wilson  for  a  Depth  Charge  gun  on  the 
stern  of  the  Wanderer,  the  engineer  said,  'I'm 
afraid  that  your  stem  is  not  strong  enough  to  stand 


THE   COLLEGE   KIDS  25 

the  shock  of  the  discharge.'  Captain  Wilson  said, 
'If  we  blow  off  our  stern,  we'll  bring  the  bow  in, 
and  then  they'll  give  us  a  better  ship.' 

"There  are  two  German  subs  operating  regularly 
around  here.  The  boys  call  them  'Armen  Archie' 
and  Tenmarch  Pete.'  The  Harry  Luckenhack  was 
sunk  by  one  of  them.  Captain  Wilson,  regardless 
of  all  advice  given  for  such  torpedoing  by  night, 
which  is  to  keep  circling  for  fear  of  the  submarine, 
regardless  of  any  danger  to  himself,  stopped  his  ship 
and  saved  practically  all  the  men.  He  received  a 
letter  from  the  survivors  written  so  soon  after  they 
were  saved  that  the  handwriting  was  still  shaky." 

To  my  way  of  thinking,  there  is  just  as  much  to 
be  said  for  the  other  men  of  the  Suicide  Fleet  as 
there  is  for  the  "College  Kids."  The  latter  have,  no 
doubt,  a  popular  appeal,  but  the  former  have  a  pic- 
turesqueness  that  is  all  their  own.  On  duty,  there 
is  no  choice  between  them,  and,  of  course,  no  dis- 
tinction; here  I  have  separated  them  only  for  your 
passing  attention,  and  having  done  so,  let  me  quote 
you,  even  at  some  length,  from  the  writings  of  three 
representatives  of  the  non-academic  jacky-class. 

These  men  were  writing  accounts  of  their  first 
few  months  at  sea  during  the  present  war.  It  does 
not  here  concern  us  whom  they  were  addressing ;  the 
only  point  is  that,  though  I  later  received  permission 
to  make  such  use  as  I  pleased  of  what  they  wrote, 
they  did  not  write  with  any  self -consciousness.  It 
seems  to  me  that  the  simple  manner  in  which  they 


2^  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

have  told  their  stories  is  the  best  testimony  to  their 
worth  and  valor. 

The  first  writer  is  a  young  fellow  that  enlisted  be- 
fore the  war  and  began  his  active  life  in  the  Navy: 

"We  left  New  York  harbour,  the  fifth  of  June, 

pulled  down  to and  coaled  ship ;  then  we  pulled 

to  the  Azore  Islands,  and  there  we  coaled  ship.  From 
the  Azore  Islands  we  hit  a  heavy  storm,  which  lasted 
two  days.  We  arrived  at  our  French  port  on 
the  25th  of  June. 

"We  lay  there  for  two  weeks,  and  then  carried 
our  first  convoy  out.  On  this  first  bit  of  convoy- 
work,  we  were  rammed  by  the  W .    It  knocked 

us  all  out  of  our  bunks,  bent  in  our  bow,  and, 
though  we  were  for  a  time  alarmed,  we  found  that 
the  damage  was  slight  and  we  made  port  without 
help. 

"The  second  time  we  went  out,  we  were  about  two 
days  at  sea  and  had  picked  up  our  convoy  and  were 
on  the  way  in,  when  one  of  our  fleet  was  torpedoed. 
She  went  down  in  four  and  a  half  minutes,  and  we 
picked  up  a  hundred  and  sixty-three  survivors. 

"I  saw  a  guy  coming  down  off  the  starboard  bow, 
and  I  threw  a  rope  to  him.  He  was  so  weak  that  he 
couldn't  hold  to  the  rope.  So  I  ran  back  to  the  fan- 
tail,  and  one  boy  tied  a  rope  around  me.  Then  I 
jumped  off  the  fantail  into  the  water.  They  threw 
me  a  rope,  and  I  tied  it  on  to  the  man,  and  we  both 
were  brought  on  board  safely.  .  .  .  We  came  into 
port  with  our  survivors. 


THE   COLLEGE    KIDS  27 

"The  third  time  we  went  out,  we  were  three  days 
at  sea  and  picked  up  five  ships,  with  the  assistance  of 
four  torpedo-boats  and  three  yachts.  On  the  way 
in,  a  big  transport  was  hit  and  a  huge  hole  torn  in 
her  side,  thirty  feet  by  forty. 

"We  picked  up  ninety-three  of  her  crew,  who  had 
jumped  overboard." 

Seaman  No.  2,  used  to  be,  I  was  told,  a  clerk  in 
an  inland  city : 

"  .  .  .  .  The  best  yachts  in  the  country,  they  fixed 
up  and  sent  right  over.  We  came  in  the  Vidette, 
with  the  first  eight.  She  was  Drexel  Paul's  uncle's 
yacht,  and  the  crew  were  college  kids,  and  some  old- 
timers  re-enlisted  and  a  few  fellows  that  went  into 
the  service  because  they  hadn't  anywhere  else  to  go. 
There  is  a  lot  of  rough  stuff  in  the  Navy,  but  when 
you  get  right  down  to  the  bunch,  they're  a  pretty  fine 
lot  of  fellows. 

"The  trip  across  didn't  amount  to  much;  I  don't 
know  what  to  put  in  about  it.  No  one  knew  where 
they  were  going.  A  great  many  were  seasick  and  all 
that  stu.ff.  On  the  way  over,  just  before  we  reached 
France,  we  heard  of  German  raiders.  We'd  get  all 
excited  and  cha^e  up  to  see  what  it  was,  but  it  never 
came  to  anything. 

"One  morning,  I  was  going  on  watch,  when  I  hap- 
pened to  spy  a  black  object  on  the  horizon.  We 
couldn't  make  out  what  it  was.  The  Captain  started 
over  towards  it.  As  we  got  nearer,  it  turned  out  to 
be  a  dead  elephant.    That's  a  fact.    It  was  full  of 


28  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

holes.  I  don't  know  how  it  ever  got  out  there,  un- 
less some  ship  was  sunk,  bringing  animals  from 
Africa  for  a  circus. 

"A  little  before  we  came  into  port,  our  convoy 
passed  an  American  tanker  that  was  sinking,  and 
the  Sultana  went  back  and  picked  up  the  survivors. 
Just  as  we  were  arriving,  the  smallest  yacht  of  the 
lot  broke  down,  the  Christabcl,  and  she  was  towed 
in.  She  was  an  old  ship,  and  made  in  England ;  no 
one  thought  that  she  would  last,  and  there  at  the  last 
minute  she  broke  down.  But  she  was  repaired  and 
is  still  doing  fine. 

"That  was  about  all  until  we  arrived  here.  We 
landed  in  France  on  July  4th,  with  the  American  flag 
flying.  We  stayed  in  port  two  weeks.  Just  as  soon 
as  we  sort  of  got  over  our  tired  feeling,  we  went 
right  out  on  patrol-duty.  The  first  time  was  the 
worst  weather  for  five  or  six  months.  We  did  pa- 
trol-duty all  the  time  at  first.  Believe  me,  it  was 
hard  work!  You  couldn't  eat;  you  couldn't  sleep; 
you  couldn't  do  anything.  After  that,  it  was  pretty 
nice  weather, 

"Around  the  third  or  fourth  time  we  did  convoy 
duty,  we  had  our  first  experience  of  a  torpedo.  We 
had  a  big  Greek  steamer  right  beside  us,  so  we  didn't 
see  the  sub.  It  came  up  right  behind  a  fishing-boat. 
It  fired  a  torpedo  and  submerged.  Got  the  Greek 
steamer.  Took  her  forty  minutes  to  go  down.  We 
never  saw  the  sub  again;  we  went  on  and  left  a 
French  aeroplane  looking  for  it.    .    .    ." 


THE   COLLEGE   KIDS  29 

Finally,  and  at  some  length — for  I  think  you  will 
find  him  worth  it — here  is  the  story  of  a  gunner's 
mate,  second-class,  who,  eighteen  months  ago,  was 
employed  in  a  business-house  in  New  York : 

"On  March  the  27th,  having  received  information 
on  good  authority  that  war  would  be  declared  on  or 
about  April  2nd,  I  concluded  to  enter  the  naval 
service.  With  this  object  in  mind,  I  visited  the  office 
of  the  Naval  Reserve  force,  26  Cortlandt  St.,  New 
York  City,  and  was  interviewed  by  the  recruiting 
officer. 

"After  questioning  me  concerning  my  qualifica- 
tions, age,  etc.,  it  was  thought  that  I  was  much  over 
the  age-limit,  I  being  over  forty-five  years  of  age. 
Later,  the  lieutenant  ascertained  that  it  was  possible 
to  enlist  me  for  coast-defense  service  in  America, 
and  endeavored  to  have  me  enlist  as  a  yeoman,  but 
I  desired  active  service  at  sea  instead  of  being  a  yeo- 
man on  recruiting  duty.  After  passing  the  physical 
examination,  I  was  accepted  as  a  seaman,  first  class, 
and  enrolled  in  the  fourth  class  division,  Coast  De- 
fense. A  week  or  so  later,  after  interview  with  Cap- 
tain Patton  of  the  recruiting  station,  he  advised  me 
to  study  up  various  manuals  and  take  an  oral  exam- 
ination for  gunners  mate,  third  class,  and  appear 
before  him  the  following  week. 

"I  appeared  as  requested  and  passed  the  examina- 
tion favorably,  and  received  my  notification  to  call 
at  the  Naval  Reserve  Office,  Brooklyn  Naval  Yard 
for  active  duty.    I  called  as  directed,  and,  after  sub- 


30  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

mitting  to  another  medical  examination,  was  ushered 
into  a  room  and  received  my  sailor  outfit,  which  I 
was  ordered  to  put  on. 

"I  tried  to  explain  that  I  had  left  my  desk  open 
with  many  important  papers  lying  around  and  de- 
sired to  return  at  once  in  order  to  straighten  up  my 
affairs.  It  took  some  time  to  convince  the  officer 
that  it  was  absolutely  necessary  for  me  to  remove 
my  uniform  and  return  to  my  office,  but  at  last  I 
received  the  consent.    .    .    . 

"I  was  assigned  to  the  Corsair,  which  used  to  be 
Mr.  Morgan's  yacht.  After  a  long  search,  I  found 
her  in  one  of  the  numerous  docks  for  which  the 
Navy  Yard  is  noted.  I  boarded  her,  and  the  sentry 
passed  me  over  to  the  Bos'n,  who  showed  me  where 
my  compartment  was  to  be,  likewise  my  bunk.  I 
proceeded  to  make  myself  at  home,  and  at  five- 
thirty  that  p.  M.,  I  had  my  supper,  the  first  meal 
aboard  the  ship.  That  night,  I  slept  in  my  bunk, 
and,  although  it  was  quite  small  for  me,  I  enjoyed  a 
good  night's  rest. 

"The  following  morning  at  six-thirty,  reveille 
sounded,  and  I  commenced  my  duties.  For  several 
weeks,  we  were  busily  engaged  in  carrying  aboard 
ammunition,  supplies,  etc.  About  June  11th,  we 
were  hauled  over  to  the  coal-docks  and  had  our 
bunkers  filled  with  coal.  Then  a  wagon  came  along- 
side the  dock  with  a  large  number  of  burlap  bags. 
We  filled  the  bags  with  coal,  and  soon  the  deck  was 
almost  impassable  on  account  of  the  bags. 


THE    COLLEGE    KIDS  31 

"On  the  morning  of  June  14th,  at  3  :30  a.  m.,  all 
hands  were  awakened  in  the  most  silent  fashion  by 
the  chief  boatswain's  mate  and  ordered  to  take  their 
station  and  prepare  to  go  to  sea.  I  hastily  got  into 
my  clothes,  went  up  on  deck  and  found  it  to  be  a 
dark,  misty  morning,  with  a  heavy  fog  overhanging, 
and  the  air  cold  and  penetrating. 

"At  four  A.  M.  we  pulled  up  anchor  and  silently 
moved  out  into  the  stream.  By  midday  we  were 
well  out  of  sight  of  land. 

"Soon  the  fog  lifted,  and  we  could  see  several 
large  cruisers,  quite  a  number  of  armed  yachts  and 
several  torpedo-boats  in  our  vicinity.  Later  we  were 
joined  by  the  large  transports,  and  we  set  off  in 
three  divisions,  each  division  having  a  large  cruiser, 
armed  yachts  and  torpedo-boats  as  their  escort.  Our 
boat  accompanied  the  first  division  and  kept  up  with 
the  fleet  for  several  days,  when  we  were  ordered  to 
fall  back  and  join  the  second  group.  For  five  days 
we  were  practically  alone  at  sea,  somewhere  between 
the  first  and  second  division.  One  morning  just  as 
it  was  getting  daylight,  we  could  see  the  top  masts 
of  the  second  division  hovering  into  sight.  Soon 
we  joined  up  and  were  assigned  to  the  special  con- 
voy of  the  U.  S.  S. ,  the  famous  transport  of 

the  Marines. 

"From  time  to  time  we  would  get  close  to  this 
and  would  receive  the  cheers  from  the  Marines 
aboard  her.  We  in  turn  cheered  back,  and  thus  the 
days  passed  until  we  were  tv/o  days  off  the  coast  of 


32  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

France.  Then  our  division  was  attacked  by  sub- 
marines. 

"From  what  I  have  heard,  two  torpedoes  were 
fired  at  the  transport,  one  just  passing  her  bow  and 

the  other  her  stem.     The  torpedo-boat  C and 

ours  followed  the  submarines'  wake  and  the  C , 

being  the  nearest,  was  seen  to  drop  several  depth- 
charges  which  destroyed  at  least  one  submarine,  as 
the  effects  of  the  charge  were  visible  by  the  oil  and 
pieces  of  wreckage  which  came  to  the  surface.  Ap- 
parently there  was  no  excitement  aboard  any  of  the 
ships.  A  vigilant  watch  was  kept,  but  no  more  sub- 
marines were  seen. 

"On  June  27th,  about  four  a.  m.,  revolving  light- 
houses along  the  coast  of  France  were  seen,  and  la- 
ter in  the  day,  the  coast  itself  became  a  reality. 
About  7  a.  m._,  we  poked  out  noses  into  some  quaint 
old  harbour  and  lay  there  for  the  day.  That  eve- 
ning we  were  given  liberty,  and  for  the  first  time  in 
tlie  experience  of  many  of  us,  we  were  walking  the 
streets  of  a  foreign  port. 

"The  transport  went  through  a  canal,  and  the 
troops  disembarked  amid  the  cheers  of  an  excited 
populace.  To  the  French  people  it  was  very  evident 
that  America  had  in  reality  commenced  to  be  her 
ally,  and  they  were  actually  in  the  war. 

"For  hours  and  hours  they  were  singing  French 
and  American  songs,  and  soon  the  streets  were 
thronged  with  American  blue  jackets  and  American 
soldiers  in  khaki.     We  had  many  amusing  experi- 


o 


<    M 


» 

t 

} 

p', 

\  \  - 

/ 

THE    COLLEGE    KIDS  33 

ences  when  we  sought  to  buy  different  things  we 
needed,  as  we  could  not  speak  French  nor  the  store- 
keepers EngHsh.  Good-nature  prevailed,  and,  if  we 
didn't  get  exactly  what  we  wanted,  we  came  very 
near  to  it.  The  people  were  anxious  to  serve  us  and 
make  us  feel  at  home. 

"After  several  days,  we  pulled  up  anchor  for  some 
other  place  in  France  and,  after  steaming  for  a 
whole  day,  we  arrived  at  a  quaint  place  which 
proved  to  be  our  permanent  base  for  future  opera- 
tions. Our  ship  and  another  armed  yatch  of  sim- 
ilar type  was  the  first  of  the  permanent  fleet,  which 
was  soon  to  be  organized  to  patrol  the  submarine 
zone.  We  were  given  liberty,  and,  without  any  hur- 
rahs or  cheers,  we  visited  the  town,  and  soon  the 
people  learned  to  know  that  we  were  the  advance 
guard  of  the  oncoming  fleet  which  was  soon  to  pro- 
tect their  shores. 

"After  several  days'  rest,  our  boat  put  to  sea  alone 
and  did  patrol-duty,  searching  for  submarines,  and 
returned  after  four  days  and  four  nights.  Nothing 
unusual  happened  during  this  trip,  but  we  did  notice 
a  great  amount  of  wreckage,  giving  evidence  that 
the  submarines  had  gotten  in  their  deadly  work. 

"The  next  several  weeks  were  spent  in  cruising 
about  the  sea  searching  for  the  elusive  subs,  but  none 
put  in  an  appearance  to  challenge  us.  Later  our  du- 
ties were  changed,  and,  with  several  newly  arrived 
torpedo-boats,  we  would  go  to  sea  to  meet  the  arriv- 
ing transports  aiid  supply-ships  and  convoy  them  to 


34  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

the  different  ports.  There  was  no  question  that  the 
submarines  were  in  our  vicinity  and  were  ready  and 
eager  at  all  times  to  sink  our  ships  with  their  pre- 
cious cargoes.  During  July  and  August  we  con- 
tinued to  do  this  class  of  work  without  any  exciting 
incident.  Ships  were  met  at  sea  and  convoyed  safe- 
ly into  port  and  again  were  convoyed  safely  out  on 
their  return  journey  to  America. 

"About  the  first  week  in  September,  we  put  out  to 
sea  and  were  out  about  two  days  when  we  came 
upon  a  large  fleet  of  ships,  probably  twenty-five  or 
thirty,  somewhere  off  the  coast  of  England.  There 
was  a  great  array  of  cruisers  and  torpedo-boats  ac- 
companying the  fleet,  and  it  was  an  inspiring  sight. 
That  evening,  about  six  o'clock,  our  ship,  with  a 
French  torpedo-boat,  received  orders  to  convoy  four 
of  the  large  ships  into  one  of  the  ports.  We  pro- 
ceeded on  our  way,  and  about  an  hour  later  one  of 
the  ships  signalled  to  us  that  a  submarine  was  sighted 
off  her  port.  We  continued  on  our  way,  keeping  a 
vigilant  watch,  but  through  the  long  hours  of  the 
night  nothing  was  seen  more  of  the  submarine. 

"About  7 :45  a.  m.  next  day,  one  of  the  ships  sig- 
nalled again  that  the  submarine  was  again  off  her 
port,  and  later  another  ship  signalled  that  the  sub- 
marine was  off  her  starboard  side.  All  of  the  ships 
commenced  firing,  and  at  intervals,  for  over  an  hour, 
shots  were  fired  at  the  submarine — which  turned  out 
to  be  submarines — whenever  they  poked  their  per- 
iscopes above  the  surface  or  when  their  wakes  were 


THE    COLLEGE    KIDS  35 

noticeable.  Our  ship  led  the  way,  but  the  four  ships 
strung  out,  and  the  French  torpedo-boat  followed  in 
the  rear.  Later  a  large  airplane  hove  in  sight,  and 
we  were  notified  by  the  aviator  that  we  were  over  a 
mine-field  that  had  been  sown  by  the  subs  during  the 
night.  We  got  through  safely,  however,  and  landed 
the  ships  in  port,  no  damage  being  done.  I  learned 
afterwards  that  two  German  submarines  were  sunk 
in  this  engagement. 

"After  spending  an  hour  or  two  in  port,  we  put 
again  to  sea.  We  met  another  convoy  and  brought 
them  safely  into  another  port.  A  day  later  we 
pulled  up  anchor  and  made  for  our  own  base,  where 
we  lay  over  just  long  enough  to  coal  up  and  put  on 
some  supplies,  when  we  were  off  again  for  a  well- 
known  port  in  England.  Here  we  put  on  a  large 
quantity  of  depth-charges  and,  after  a  few  hours' 
liberty  ashore,  pulled  up  anchor  and  left  the  port 
with  the  cheers  of  the  English  jackies  ringing  in 
our  ears. 

"The  following  morning,  while  on  gun-watch,  I 
observed  a  peculiar  object  skimming  along  the  sur- 
face of  the  water.  At  first  I  thought  it  was  a  por- 
poise, but  was  soon  convinced  that  it  was  a  torpedo 
which  had  just  missed  us  and  spent  itself.  I  made 
a  report  to  the  ordnance-officer,  and  we  continued 
our  journey  without  anything  happening.  Later  I 
learned  that  two  torpedoes  had  been  fired  on  us  on 
that  trip. 

"It  was  verv  fortunate  for  us  that  none  of  the 


36  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

torpedoes  connected  with  us  in  this  eventful  voyage, 
for,  if  we  had  been  hit  with  that  deadly  cargo 
aboard,  no  one  would  have  ever  lived  to  tell  the  tale. 
We  would  have  been  blown  to  atoms. 

"We  got  in  safely,  however,  and  distributed  the 
depth-charges  to  the  other  ships  of  the  fleet  and  pro- 
ceeded out  to  sea  again,  to  meet  another  convoy. 
While  on  this  trip  we  sighted  a  sail  on  what  ap- 
peared to  be  a  life-boat  and,  on  coming  closer,  we 
saw  men  in  it  frantically  waving  their  hands  at  us. 
We  picked  them  up  and  learned  that  they  were  part 
of  the  crew  of  a  large  fishing-boat  that  had  been 
sunk  by  a  German  sub.  Later  we  picked  up  two 
other  boats,  rescuing  in  all  sixteen  men. 

"All  through  the  month  of  September,  we  were 
busily  engaged  in  convoy  work,  but  nothing  really 
exciting  except  some  heavy  storms  intermingled 
with  calm  seas. 

"On  October  2nd,  while  we  were  several  hundred 
miles  out  to  sea  and  had  just  left  a  large  convoy  on 
the  way  to  America,  the  stillness  of  the  afternoon 
was  broken  by  five  shots  in  rapid  succession.  At 
first  we  thought  it  was  target-practise  from  a  ship 
in  our  vicinity.  That  did  not  deter  us,  however,  in 
seeking  out  the  cause  of  the  shot. 

"After  steaming  in  the  direction  of  the  shots  for 
about  an  hour,  we  sighted  a  large  fishing-bark.  Off 
in  the  distance  were  six  life-boats  containing  a  num- 
ber of  men.  Suddenly  two  more  shots  rang  out,  and 
we  could  sec  a  sub  several  miles  off  the  port  side  of 


THE    COLLEGE    KIDS  37 

the  bark.  We  immediately  pursued  the  submarine, 
which  submerged.  When  we  got  over  her  wake,  we 
got  busy  at  once  with  our  depth-charges.  Whether 
we  got  the  sub  or  not  is  a  question  for  the  future  to 
decide.  We  returned  in  several  hours  and  picked 
up  the  men  in  the  boats,  who  were  to  the  number  of 
thirty-one.  After  they  were  safely  aboard,  we  of- 
fered to  put  them  back  on  their  ship,  which  was  still 
afloat  and  uninjured.  Only  one  man  was  willing  to 
go  back,  and  he  was  the  captain.  Quite  a  number 
of  the  men  on  our  ship  volunteered  to  man  the  bark 
and  try  to  take  her  into  port.  This  our  Captain  re- 
fused to  permit,  deeming  it  unwise.  A  wireless  mes- 
sage was  sent  out,  notifying  all  ports  that  the  ship 
was  unmanned  and  adrift  at  sea.  Later  v*^e  were  no- 
tified by  wireless  that  an  English  torpedo-boat  had 
towed  her  safely  into  port. 

"At  11 :30  p.  M.  of  this  same  day,  the  night  being 
dark  and  the  sea  somewhat  rough,  our  Captain 
changed  his  course,  and  we  were  somewhat  startled 
to  discover  on  the  dark  surface  of  the  water  a  large 
German  submarine.  We  immediately  opened  fire, 
and  the  submarine  submerged.  We  got  over  her 
wake  and  destroyed  her  with  a  depth-charge.  This 
was  evident  by  the  large  amount  of  oil  and  v/reckage 
seen  on  the  surface.  We  were  told  by  the  French- 
men aboard,  whom  we  had  rescued  during  the  day, 
that  there  were  three  submarines  all  told  at  the  time 
their  ship  was  attacked.  This  submarine  was  evi- 
dently one  of  them  and  had  followed  us. 

4  7  7  7  0 


38  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

"About  7  a.  m.  on  a  day  in  mid-October,  three 
days  from  land,  we  were  taking  a  convoy  out  to  sea. 
A  loud  report  was  heard,  and  one  of  our  yachts 
seemed  to  suddenly  list  and  settle  in  the  water.  She 
sank  quickly,  stern  first,  and  in  four  minutes  there 
was  nothing  visible  of  her  except  those  who  had  suc- 
ceeded in  manning  the  life-boats  or  were  floating  on 
pieces  of  wreckage.  Two  of  the  ships  which  we 
were  convoying  doubled  their  speed  and  got  away 
safely.  With  us  at  that  time  was  the  Alcedo,  with 
which  we  returned  and  picked  up  the  survivors 
amounting  to  several  hundred.  Sixty-seven  men 
were  lost  in  this  tragedy.  We  brought  the  survivors 
back  to  port  and  then  proceeded  to  a  southerly  port 
to  convoy  out  another  small  fleet  of  transports. 

"On  October  the  25th,  we  proceeded  to  sea  with 
three  large  ships  in  the  convoy,  one  of  them  being  a 
former  large  liner  turned  into  a  transport.  On  Oc- 
tober the  27th,  at  9 :30  a.  m._,  when  we  thought  that 
we  had  safely  cleared  the  submarine  zone,  a  torpedo 
was  seen  to  tear  a  large  hole  forward  on  the  star- 
board side  of  the  big  ship.  It  was  thought  by  all  that 
she  would  sink  in  a  few  moments,  and  her  civilian 
crew  were  seen  taking  to  the  life-boats.  At  this  mo- 
ment, a  great  storm  arose,  and  the  sea  became  very 
rough.  The  torpedo-boats,  which  were  with  us,  im- 
mediately made  off  for  the  other  ships  and  got  them 
safely  through  the  Danger  Zone.  With  the  Alcedo, 
we  returned  and  picked  up  a  number  of  men  who 
had  taken  to  the  life-boats  and  returned  most  of 


THE    COLLEGE    KIDS  39 

them  to  the  transport,  which  it  was  now  evident 
would  not  sink  and  could  probably  return  to  port  un- 
der her  own  steam. 

"Nothing  eventual  happened  during  the  months  of 
November  and  December.  In  January,  while  out  to 
sea  with  several  tordepo-boats,  a  hurricane  came  up- 
on us  and  we  were  tossed  about  for  forty-eight  hours 
and  thought  we  were  lost.  The  Captain  succeeded 
in  bringing  the  ship  safely  into  a  port  in  Spain, 
where  it  was  thought  that  the  repairs  needed  would 
take  several  v.eeks,  and  the  Spanish  authorities 
wished  to  intern  the  vessel.  This  the  Captain  re- 
fused to  acquiesce,  and,  after  resting  several  hours, 
we  proceeded  to  sea  for  the  nearest  allied  port  in 
Portugal.  Here  needed  repairs  were  made.  .  .  The 
ship  is  still  doing  convoy  work." 

That  is  the  sort  of  material  that  made  up  your 
Uncle  Samuel's  Suicide  Fleet  in  the  waters  of 
France. 


We  didn't  wait,  though  all  our  folks  insisted; 

The  hook  had  speedy  fighting  for  its  bait. 
And  so  we  fellows — zvell — we  just  enlisted: 
We  didn't  wait. 

We  had  to  go.   The  pace  that  battle  sets  you 

Won't  let  us  sort  of  fellozvs  be  so  slow; 
Somehow,  the  fact  that  you  are  needed  gets  you: 
We  had  to  go. 

So  here  zve  are — or,  whafs  left  of  us,  rather; 

We've  wandered  kind  of  wild  and  kind  of  far; 
But,  still,  we  like  the  life — as  you  can  gather. 
Since  here  zve  are. 

— Volunteers. 


CHAPTER  III 

PERILS  OF  THE  DEEP 

I  FIRST  sailed  with  the  Suicide  Fleet  in  the  early 
autumn  of  1917,  and  most  of  the  incidents  I  have 
thus  far  recorded  occurred  either  before  or  shortly 
after  that  time.  Those  were  the  days  when  the 
harlequin-yachts  had  but  one  chance  of  safety : 

"It's  this  way,"  I  remember  a  volunteer  of  forty- 
two  explained  the  matter:  "A  sub's  torpedo  costs 
about  $25,000,  and  our  boats  have  been  so  knocked 
about  by  this  time  that  their  marked  value  isn't 
more  than  $15,000  apiece.  Of  course,  once  in  a 
while  we  do  so  much  damage  that  Fritzie  loses  his 
temper  and  thinks  we're  worth  a  tin-fish.  If  he  ever 
hits  us,  it's  good  night :  we're  so  little  and  we  carry 
such  a  lot  of  explosives  that  we'd  never  know  what 
struck  us.  That's  the  way  it  was  with  the  Alcedo. 
I  was  al^oard  her." 

He  told  me  about  the  Alcedo.  I  repeat  his  words, 
as  nearly  as  possible,  verbatim : 

*Tt  was  night,  and  winter,  and  cold.  We  was 
bringin'  up  the  tail  of  a  convoy.  I  was  below, 
asleep  in  my  bunk.    All  of  a  sudden — BANG! 

"I  didn't  need  to  be  told  what  that  was.  I  was 
out  of  my  bunk  and  at  the  door  before  the  explosion 
was  over — mebbie  the  explosion  threw  me  out. 

41 


42  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

"Something  had  happened  to  the  hghts,  and 
everything  was  pitch  dark.  I  grabbed  the  door- 
knob— and  the  door  had  jammed. 

"Don't  ask  me  how  I  got  that  door  open.  I  don't 
know.  I  remember  jerkin'  down  a  bunk  and  ham- 
mering at  the  door  with  the  bunk's  iron  framework, 
and  then,  the  next  thing  I  remember,  I  was  on  deck. 

"The  way  the  men  that  was  on  duty  behaved,  you 
can  tell  that  best  from  one  story.  We  had  a  gob 
named  Proon — something  like  that.  He  was  one  of 
the  forward  gun-crew  and  was  at  his  station  when 
the  torpedo  struck  us.  Nobody'd  seen  her  coming. 
Nobody  knew  there  was  a  sub  anywhere  near.  We 
just  all  of  a  sudden  got  it.  Well,  this  fellow,  Proon, 
or  whatever  his  name  was,  he  was  blown  overboard, 
clear  into  the  sea.  Force  of  the  explosion,  you 
know.  They  found  out  afterwards  both  of  his  shoes 
was  blown  off,  and  one  ankle  broken  and  one 
sprained.  But  he  swam  back  to  the  ship  and  crawled 
to  his  station  at  the  gun,  although  he  knew  all  along 
we  were  done  for — and  he  stayed  there  till  Four- 
Stripes  gave  the  order  to  abandon  ship.  It  was  all 
over  in  about  five  minutes,  but  it  seemed  like  five 
hours. 

"About  me.  By  the  time  I  got  on  deck  the  show 
was  done.  There  was  one  fellow  in  the  fantail.  I 
yelled  to  him  where  was  the  others. 

"  'They're  all  gone,'  he  says.  'Lend  a  hand  here,' 
he  says,  'an'  we'll  launch  this  raft.' 

"You  see,  he  was  tryin'  to  launch  a  raft.  I  helped, 


PERILS    OF    THE    DEEP  43 

but  it  was  dark,  and  she  was  goin'  down  by  the 
head,  and  there  was  only  the  two  of  us, 

"When  the  raft  was  'most  ready,  I  says : 

"'Is  that  a  hfe-preserver  you  got  on?' — It  was 
dark,  you  understand. 

"An'  he  says,  yes,  it  was. 

"So  I  says : 

"  'Well,  I'm  goin'  to  try  to  find  one.' 

"He  told  me  not  to  be  a  fool,  for  there  wasn't  no 
time  to  spare.  But  I  ran  down  to  my  bunk — slid 
'most  the  way — but  it  was  blacker  down  there  than 
on  deck,  even.  So  I  beat  it  on  deck  again  an'  tried 
to  find  the  place  where  I  knew  a  locker  used  to  be. 
I  sung  out  to  that  fellow  on  the  f antail — he  was  close 
by — I  sung  out : 

"  'Let  me  know  when  she  goes !' 

"Right  away,  almost,  just  when  I  found  that  lock- 
er and  was  hangin'  over  it,  he  calls : 

"  'Here  she  goes,  Charley !' 

"And  with  that  I  jumped.  There  wasn't  a  chance 
of  gettin'  back  to  him,  so  I  jumped, 

"It  was  freezin'  cold  in  the  water,  an'  the  water 
was  full  of  men  swimmin'.  You'd  butt  into  them. 
I  bumped  one.  From  his  voice  I  knew  it  was  a  fel- 
low named  Coleman  that  they  used  to  say  had  been  a 
porter,  or  somethin',  at  the  Waldorf  Hotel  in  New 
York.  Along  with  me,  he  got  to  a  four-man  raft; 
but  it  had  five  men  on  it,  an'  he  seen  he'd  only  make 
things  dangerous  for  everybody  else  if  he  stayed  on. 
So  he  just  says: 


44  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

"  *Good-by,  boys,  an'  good  luck !' — an'  he  dove 
off. 

"I  heard  a  boat  picked  him  up  an  hour  later,  an' 
he  was  'most  all  in.  But  I  was  glad  he  was  picked 
up. 

"I  got  to  another  raft,  somehow.  It  was  bigger, 
but  fellows  kep'  climbin'  aboard  till  it  was  gettin' 
overcrowded,  too.  There  was  an  officer  in  com- 
mand. 

"One  o'  the  first  fellows  on  her  was  a  young  Jew 
fellow.  We  used  to  guy  him,  one  way  an'  another, 
in  the  old  days.  Well,  bye  an'  bye,  the  officer  he 
says: 

"  'This  raft's  overcrowded.  There's  one  too  many 
on  her.    One  of  us'll  have  to  go.' 

"Just  then  there  wasn't  any  other  raft,  let  alone  a 
boat,  anywhere  in  sight,  but  no  sooner'd  the  officer 
said  about  somebody  havin'  to  go  than  the  Jew,  he 
saluted,  an'  'Aye,  aye,  sir,'  he  says,  an'  jumped  off 
into  the  water. 

"It  was  a  little  after  that  that  one  of  the  Akedo's 
boats  come  alongside,  an'  she  was  almost  empty  an' 
took  us  all  off  the  raft. 

"We  couldn't  see  anything,  and  of  course  the  con- 
voy'd  got  away  as  fast  as  it  could.  That's  accordin' 
to  orders;  when  a  sub  gets  into  action,  the  convoy 
must  run:  if  you  stayed  to  pick  up  survivors  you 
might  all  get  caught. 

"So  we  went  pullin'  along,  not  knowin'  whether 
we  was  headin'  for  France  or  New  York,  when,  just 


PERILS    OF    THE    DEEP  45 

out  of  nothin'  at  all,  there  was  the  sub  right  on  our 
starboard  Ix)w.  A  lot  of  men  were  standin'  on  her 
deck. 

"  'What  ship  was  that?'  one  of  them  asked.  He 
talked  good  English.    I  guess  he  was  the  captain. 

"A  gob  in  our  boat  shouted  out  'Alcedo'  before 
our  officer  could  stop  him.    He  told  her  tonnage,  too. 

"But  the  Dutchman,  he  didn't  seem  to  know  the 
name,  for  he  says  next : 

"'What  was  she?' 

"Then  our  officer,  he  says  : 

"  'Empty  tramp.    Bound  home.* 

"  'An'  who  are  you  ?'  asks  Fritz. 

"  'Twelve  o'  the  crew,'  says  our  officer. 

"  'Any  officers  among  you  ?'  says  the  German. 

"  'No,'  says  our  officer.  'An'  which  way's  land  ?' 
he  says. 

"The  Dutchman  told  us  one  way  an'  went  below; 
but  he  must  'a'  thought  better  of  it,  for  we  hadn't 
gone  but  a  few  strokes  before  he  was  up  again  an' 
yellin'  after  us  that  just  the  opposite  way  was  the 
right  way — an'  it  was. 

"That  was  the  last  we  saw  of  him.  We  pulled 
for  fifteen  hours.  Every  once  in  a  while,  we'd  kind 
o'  lose  heart  an'  quit.  When  you  was  relieved  from 
rowin',  you'd  lie  in  the  bottom  an'  think  things.  I 
heard  one  of  the  other  boats  dried  their  tobacco  and 
tried  to  smoke,  but  hadn't  got  any  dry  matches,  so 
they  just  threw  it  away  because  it  was  an  aggrava- 
tion there.   Some  of  us  were  better  off,  for  we  were 


46  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

chewers.  I'd  learned  to  chew,  workin'  in  the  steel- 
mills,  an'  I  think  it  about  saved  my  life. 

"Well,  anyway,  we  made  land  at  last.  I  was  all 
in,  lyin'  in  the  bottom  an'  all  ready  to  die,  when 
somebody  yelled,  an'  I  jumped  up  an'  seen  a  pretty 
white  lighthouse — I  never  did  see  anything  so  pretty 
as  that  lighthouse  was — an'  right  away  all  my 
strength  come  back,  an'  I  took  an  oar  an'  pulled  like 
a  dray-horse. 

**We  landed  at  a  funny  little  French  village, 
where  they  hadn't  never  seen  Americans  before,  an' 
they  made  such  a  feast  for  us  that  we  all  says  we're 
goin'  back  there — when  the  war's  over.  They  gave 
us  their  own  kind  o'  clothes  an'  wooden  shoes — an' 
that's  the  way  we  was  all  dressed  when  we  got  back 
to  the  Base." 

As  the  survivor  concluded,  I  recollected  what  I 
had  heard,  from  the  doctors  at  Naval  Base  Hos- 
pital No.  5,  who  told  me  of  the  arrival  of  the  other 
boats'  crews,  which,  picked  up  by  a  French  destroyer, 
made  the  same  port  wherefrom  the  Alcedo  had 
started.  It  was  night.  A  wireless  message  from  the 
attacked  convoy  warned  them  to  be  ready  for  sur- 
vivors. They  cruised  the  harbour,  and  beyond  it,  to 
no  purpose. 

"We  returned  at  last  to  the  pier,"  said  one  doctor, 
"and  almost  at  once  that  little  wasplike  destroyer 
appeared.  She  made  a  beautiful  landing,  but  her 
load  of  survivors  were  dreadfully  done  up.  One  of 
them  was  so  weak  that  he  couldn't  walk.     He  col- 


PERILS    OF   THE   DEEP  47, 

lapsed  and  fell  into  the  water  between  the  boat  and 
the  pier.  It  was  a  nasty  place  for  a  rescue,  but 
Doctor  Herman  dove  in,  with  two  sailors,  and  got 
him  out.  The  sort  of  condition  those  Alcedo  men 
must  have  been  in  to  begin  with,  though,  is  shown  by 
the  fact  that  we  didn't  have  one  case  of  pneumonia 
among  them." 

My  special  informant  concerning  the  Alcedo  af- 
fair was  doing  shore-police  duty  when  he  told  me 
his  story. 

"Once  we  got  back  to  the  Base,"  he  grinned,  "they 
all  pulled  the  hero  stuff  on  us.  The  Admiral  gave 
us  Paris-leave,  and  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  paid  for  the  trip. 
We  had  the  time  of  our  lives." 

"And  now  you're  ashore  for  good?"  I  asked  him. 

He  grew  sad  again. 

"For  bad,"  he  corrected.  "Looks  like  it.  There's 
not  boats  enough.  I  don't  care  for  it.  If  I  can't 
get  back  to  sea  somehow,  I'm  goin'  to  try  to  get 
some  sort  o'  transfer  to  the  Marines,  or  even  the 
Army.  O'  course,  it  won't  be  as  excitin'  at  the  front 
as  on  the  yachts,  but  it'll  be  better'n  playin'  cop." 

It  was  certainly  exciting  work,  that  of  the  Mos- 
quito Fleet,  at  times,  but  it  was  work  in  long  shifts, 
too.  At  Bordeaux  I  was  ashore  in  December  with 
one  party  of  officers  when  we  met  another: 

"We've  had  leave  only  once  since  September  6th," 
a  member  of  the  second  party  told  me. 

"Any  action?"  I  inquired. 

"Not  much  this  trip.    Still,  we've  had  eight  sub- 


48  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

scares — not  a  buoy  or  a  floating  Ixdx,  but  tlie  real 
thing.  Six  times  we  had  a  chance  to  open  fire  and, 
out  of  that  half-dozen  times,  our  shots  never  but 
once  landed  more  than  ten  feet  away  from  the  mark. 
Once  one  of  the  lookouts  called  the  commander's  at- 
tention to  a  sea-gull  that  didn't  seem  to  be  behaving 
naturally;  we  took  a  look — and  that  gull  had  come 
to  rest  on  a  periscope.  We  gave  her" — he  used  the 
term  that  the  term  "depth-charge"  has  gradually 
changed  to — "we  gave  her  a  death-bomb,  but  I  think 
she  got  away." 

It  was  on  this  occasion  that  we  fell  to  talking  of 
the  Antilles.  On  his  converted  yacht,  the  officer 
that  had  just  been  speaking  was  present  when  that 
homeward-bound  transport  was  torpedoed. 

"She  settled  by  the  stern  in  four  minutes,"  he  told 
me,  "and  then  the  water  got  to  her  boilers  and  they 
exploded.  The  explosion  raised  the  ship  clear  of  the 
water.  In  one  sense,  it  was  a  blessing;  only  four 
boats  had  been  got  over  the  side,  and  two  of  those 
capsized;  there  hadn't  been  time  to  launch  the  life- 
rafts,  and  nearly  everybody  had  jumped  into  the 
water,  but  that  blast  shook  the  rafts  free  and  spread 
them  broadcast  within  reach  of  the  swimmers.    Not 

of  all,  however ;  as  the  C steamed  up  for  rescue 

work,  she  sighted  a  Jackie  floating  astride  of  an  am- 
munition-box that  turned  out  to  have  one  six-inch 
shell  left  in  it:  he  stood  up  on  the  box  and  wig- 
wagged to  the  C with  his  arms,  to  take  care  on 

accomit  of  that  shell,  and  not  to  ram  the  loaded  box." 


pWSNttI 


PERILS    OF    THE    DEEP  49 

THere  was  a  Marine  who  had  been  so  ill  that  he 
was  ordered  home  aboard  the  Antilles.  He  was  res- 
cued and  ordered  home  on  the  Finland.  He  set  out 
on  her  and,  when  she  was  torpedoed,  his  arm  was 
broken.  When  I  last  saw  him  he  was  wondering 
whether  the  Navy  would  trust  another  ship  to  the 
waves  with  such  an  ill-starred  passenger. 

"We  were  convoying  the  Finland,"  a  Mosquito 

Fleet  man,  an  officer  of  the  W ,  told  the  story — 

"and  I  was  in  the  wardroom  at  about  9:20  a.  m., 
when  I  heard  the  day-time  sub-signal :  six  blasts  on 
the  whistle.  I  think  I  couldn't  have  been  more  than 
twenty  seconds  getting  on  deck. 

"  'What's  wrong?'  I  asked  the  first  jackies  I  ran 
into. 

"  'Finland's  torpedoed,'  they  said. 

"I  looked  at  her.  For  quite  a  bit,  you  couldn't 
have  told  that  anything  had  happened  to  her,  but  the 
convoy  was  running  around,  dropping  depth- 
charges.  The  flagship  signalled  us  that  our  job 
would  be  looking  after  survivors — it  wasn't  a  case 
where  running  away  would  help,  and,  besides,  there 
was  a  chance — we  could  see  it  at  once — of  saving  the 
transport. 

"A  good  deal  of  stuff  had  been  flung  overboard, 
and,  as  I  watched,  more  came  over.  Then  they  be- 
gan to  get  the  boats  off  her — there  was  a  consider- 
able sea  running — and  most  of  them  swamped.  It 
wasn't  a  pretty  sight  by  a  long  shot. 

"We  started  in  through  the  wreckage  and  worked 


50  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

till  noon,  picking  up  twenty-six  men,  but  it  was  the 
toughest  kind  of  work,  owing  to  the  roughness  of 
the  water;  we  were  pitching  so  that  it  was  next  to 
impossible  to  get  anybody  aboard.  We  had  to  go 
slow,  and  the  result  was  that  most  of  the  rescued 
had  been  too  long  in  the  water.  Some  of  them 
couldn't  raise  an  arm  to  show  us  where  they  were; 
a  lot  were  doubled  up  with  cramps,  and,  whereas 
nearly  all  began  by  shouting  for  help,  pretty  soon — 
in  about  half  an  hour,  I  should  say — there  wasn't  a 
sound  to  be  heard  from  them. 

"All  of  a  sudden,  we  sighted  a  fellow  about  sev- 
enty yards  away  from  us,  practically  done  for 
and  giving  in.  He  had  a  life-preserver  on,  and 
that's  all  that  was  keeping  him  afloat;  there  was  a 
moment  when  it  was  doubtful  whether  there  was 
any  life  left  in  him  at  all.  Well,  there  followed  the 
best  piece  of  rescue-work  that  I've  ever  seen, 

"That  man  was  to  windward  of  us,  and  of  course 
we  were  drifting  faster  than  he  was:  every  second 
increased  the  distance  between  us  and  lessened  his 
slim  chances,  and  there  was  no  time  to  try  to  bring 
the  ship  around.  Ensign  English,  a  reserve  officer, 
stripped  and  grabbed  a  heaving-line — a  heaving-line 
is  seven-eighths  of  an  inch  thick — and  jumped  into 
that  high  sea  of  icy  water, 

"We  thought  of  course  he'd  not  live  to  reach  the 
chap,  I  never  saw  harder  swimming.  The  fellow 
from  the  Finland  was  a  good  eighty  yards  away  by 
now,  but  English  fought  through    about    seventy 


PERILS    OF   THE    DEEP  51 

yards  of  it,  fighting  his  way  over  the  huge  waves — 
and  just  there  he  found  that  the  line  wasn't  long 
enough. 

"What  did  he  do?  He  swam  back — back  to  the 
ship  again — got  a  double-length  rope  and  went  after 
that  fellow  a  second  time!  Yes,  sir.  And  he  got 
him — God  knows  how,  but  he  got  him!  Chucked 
about  in  those  waves,  he  made  a  noose  with  two 
Matthew  Walker  knots,  so  it  wouldn't  slip,  and  put 
it  around  the  Finland  man  and  drew  it  fast,  sig- 
nalled to  us  to  haul,  and  then  beat  his  way  back  with 
one  hand  while  he  helped  hold  up  the  dying  man's 
head  with  the  other. 

"We  were  pitching  heavily.  Now  our  propellers 
would  be  clear,  and  now  our  prow  would  be  fourteen 
feet  out  of  water.  Once  the  pair  of  them  were 
alongside,  it  took  us  nearly  half  an  hour  to  get  them 
aboard.  By  that  time,  English  was  about  as  nearly 
dead  as  the  fellow  he'd  saved.  But  he  had  saved 
him — at  what  risk  and  with  what  labour  you  can  see 
from  what  I've  told  you,  and — now,  here's  the  joke : 
when  we  got  that  rescued  man  ashore,  it  turned  out 
that  all  English's  danger  and  heroism  had  been  un- 
dertaken for  a  spy !" 

One  more  story  and  I  shall  have  done  with  tales 
of  the  Suicide  Fleet.  I  have  omitted,  in  my  first 
chapter,  the  story  of  the  submarine-chase  by  a  boat 
on  which  I  was  sailing,  because  I  wanted  to  report 
such  an  event  in  the  authentic  language  of  an  ex- 
pert.   Here,  then,  at  last,  is  such  a  narrative  in  the 


52  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

words  of  ail  officer  as  I  took  them  down  while  he 
uttered  them : 

"We  left  S — —  (a  French  port)  with  a  convoy 
and  an  escort  of  yachts  and  destroyers.  It  was 
about  a  month  after  the  Finland  had  been  caught, 
and  we  had  a  little  moon  and  early.  It  was  about  a 
three-quarters  moon  at  6:15,  but  there  were  low 
clouds  on  the  horizon  that  gave  the  green  hands  sub- 
scares  and  caused  one  or  two  false  alarms.  I  was  in 
my  cabin  at  6 :30,  when  the  General  Alarm  sounded. 
There  was  no  time  to  put  on  a  life-preserver,  so  I 
jumped  out  and  up  to  my  station.  On  my  way  up, 
I  saw  the  light-signal  for  a  submarine  from  the  near- 
est yacht. 

"For  a  bit  nothing  happened.  We  fussed  and  sig- 
nalled, but  we  got  no  further  news  from  our  neigh- 
bours. It  seemed  forever,  and  it  seemed  as  if 
nothing  -would  happen.  The  sea  was  calm,  and  every- 
thing was  as  still  as  can  be.  Then,  perhaps  after 
twenty  minutes,  a  yacht  somewhere  off  in  the  twi- 
light started  to  siren. 

"We  hopped  around  like  mad.  We  hopped  so 
quick  that  it  was  all  you  could  do  to  keep  your  feet. 
Fifteen  minutes  of  that,  before  a  lookout  called  a 
sub.  We  jumped  for  it.  but  didn't  spot  anything 
worth  a  shot.  We  made  about  quickl)',  and,  at  last, 
there  was  a  sure-enough  periscope  on  our  port  beam, 
two  hundred  yards  away  and  heading  in  the  oppo- 
site direction.    She  was  making  a  beautiful  wake. 

"We'd  had  plenty  of  time,  and  everything  was 


PERILS    OF    THE   DEEP  53 

ready.  We  fired  two  shots,  and  the  second  was 
some  shot,  I  tell  you!  It  hit  that  periscope — hit  it 
square  and  blew  it  to  bits. 

"That  seemed  to  fuss  her.  She  looked  like  she 
was  starting  to  submerge  all  the  way,  but  she  cut 
right  under  our  stern,  where  we  could  take  another 
easy  pot  at  her.  We  came  around,  let  the  swirl  of 
her  submergence  get  about  abaft  our  beam  and  let 
down  two  depth-charges,  one  right  after  the  other. 

"I  guess  we  were  quicker  letting  those  charges 
down  than  our  speed  could  guarantee.  Almost, 
anyhow.  All  I'm  sure  of  is,  there  was  the  guldernd- 
est  explosion  you  ever  saw — or  felt.  I  am  second- 
ary fire-control,  and  I'm  aft,  right  where  those  T. 
N.  T.  cans  begin  their  work;  well,  sire,  the  whole 
dog-gasted  ocean  came  up — wreckage,  oil,  water  and 
what  looked  like  the  bottom  of  the  sea. 

"I  fell  on  the  deck.  When  I  picked  myself  up,  the 
fellows  were  all  cheering.  It  got  right  hold  of  you, 
and  it  wasn't  till  the  cheering  w^as  over  and  even  the 
bubbles  were  well  astern,  that  I  had  a  chance  to  feel 
scared.  Then  I  found  that  the  skipper  had  been 
knocked  down,  too. 

"We  circled  and  headed  right  back  through  that 
wreckage.  There  were  two  or  three  men  floating  in 
the  middle  of  it,  but  they  were  dead  men — dead  men 
in  life-preservers,  bobbing  up  and  down  in  a  lot  of 
black,  sticky-looking  stuff.  By  that  time,  I  was  a  bit 
scared — and  by  that  time  it  was  all  over." 

As,  however,  I  have  intimated,  these  tales  of  the 


54  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

Suicide  Fleet  far  afloat,  though  tales  hitherto  un- 
told, are  bits  of  ancient  history.  With  the  arrival, 
last  winter,  of  more  destroyers  in  French  waters, 
these  took  up  that  deeper-sea  tasks  which  had  at 
first  been  the  task  of  the  harlequin-yachts:  the  Mos- 
quito Fleet  had  done  its  pioneer  work  and  was  de- 
tailed to  coastal  convoy  and  patrol-duty. 

The  life  that  they  now  lead  the  Mosquito  men 
have  woven  into  a  rough  song,  which  they  sing  to 
the  air  of  Tippcrary.    I  noted  it.    It  goes: 

They  send  us  out  each  evening 

For  to  hunt  the  coast-convoy; 
It's  under  way  at  8  p.  m.. 

Full  speed,  hearts  full  of  joy; 
But  when  we  get  to  Rubber, 

Zinc,  or  Copper  down  the  bay, 
We  hear  those  ships  are  hours  late, 

And  to  ourselves  we  say : 

CHORUS : 

It's  a  long  way  to  meet  the  convoy. 

It's  a  long  way  to  go ; 
There's  no  rest  that  way  upon,  boy, 

Unless  you  touch  Bordeaux : 
Good-by,  Continental^ 

Farewell,  Grand  Cafe; 
It's  a  long,  long  way  to  Rue  de  Siam — 

But  we'll  get  back  there  some  day! 

The  metals  mentioned  in  the  stanza  are  code- 
words employed  in  orders,  and  the  true  significance 


PERILS    OF   THE    DEEP  55 

of  them  one  is  not  permitted  to  divulge,  but  the 
Continental  and  the  Grand  Cafe  are  places  of  con- 
vivial resort  at  the  Base,  and  the  Rue  de  Siam  is 
that  street  there  which  our  jackies,  remembering  the 
Brooklyn  Navy  Yard,  have  named  Sand  Street. 
The  song  goes  on  : 

We  sail  all  round  and  round  the  bay, 

And  ne'er  a  ship  we  see. 
Although  we  sail  till  sunup  and 

Are  searching  carefully. 
At  last  we  get  a  radio : 

"They're  fifty  hours  out" — 
There's  nothing  else  for  us  to  do 

But  swear  and  put  about, 

CHORUS : 

It's  a  long  way,  etc. 

I'd  like  to  be  the  Boss  at  Base 

For  just  about  a  week : 
I'd  ship  the  whole  Flag  Office  on 

A  cruise  of  hide-and-seek ; 
I'd  start  them  nowhere  every  night, 

To  chase  themselves  till  day; 
I'd  make  them  wish  that  they  all  were 

Back  in  the  U.  S.  A. 

CHORUS : 

It's  the  wrong  way  our  boats  to  send,  boy ; 

It's  the  wrong  way  to  jog; 
It's  the  wrong  way  to  treat  a  friend,  boy, 

Or  a  little  yellow  dog; 


56  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

But  the  Boss  the  Base  is  on,  boy : 

We'll  get  our  chance  again; 
It's  a  durn  dull  job,  this  coastal  convoy, 

But  we'll  still  be  sailormen ! 

Putting,  perhaps,  the  same  feeling  into  prose,  a 
Mosquito  Fleet  skipper  said  to  me : 

'What  we're  on  now  is  a  regular  yachting-cruise. 
Why,  we  go  to  bed  with  the  ports  open !  Our  guns 
are  almost  getting  rusty;  they  haven't  been  used, 
except  in  practise,  for  six  weeks.  Last  trip  I  caught 
a  member  of  the  gun-crew  asleep  at  his  post,  and  I 
could  hardly  find  the  face  to  blame  him.  All  the 
taste  of  fighting  we  get  is  listening-in  by  radio  to 
raids  out  at  sea.    That's  our  chief  indoor  sport." 

Nevertheless,  the  men  that  talk  thus  do  so  only 
because  their  recent  past  has  set  them  so  severe  a 
standard  of  comparison.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  to 
bring  merchant  ships,  laden  with  important  freight, 
along  the  Atlantic  coast  of  France  in  time  of  war  is 
to  perform  a  task  of  no  little  responsibility  and  no 
small  danger.  Only  the  increased  efficiency  of  other 
branches  of  our  naval  service  has  reduced  the  dan- 
gers of  direct  submarine-attack;  the  dangers  from 
submarine-laid  mines  are  still  sufficient,  and  the  nat- 
ural perils  of  that  coast  are  little  short  of  enormous. 
The  Mosquito  Fleet's  present  duties  are  performed 
by  night  and  in  darkness;  there  is  a  certain  com- 
mander that  had  been  so  doing  his  share  of  them  for 
seven  months;  not  long  since,  he  for  the  first  time 
"made  the  run"  by  day;  when  he  had  passed  the 


PERILS    OF    THE   DEEP  57. 

shallow  channels,  the  needlelike  rocks  and  the  half- 
submerged  reefs  and  had  landed  safely  at  the  Base- 
port,  he  was  frankly  horrified  by  what  he  had  seen. 

"Have  I  been  going  over  such  a  course  all  this 
time  without  really  realizing  it?"  he  gasped.  "Go- 
ing over  it  and  leading  other  ships?  By  cricky,  if 
I'd  seen  what  I  was  doing  the  first  time  I  tried  it, 
I  don't  believe  I'd  have  had  the  nerve !" 

But  he  would  have  had.  The  nerve  of  the  Mos- 
quito Fleet's  officers  and  men  has  added  a  new  tradi- 
tion of  honor  to  our  Navy, 


The  spider  sits  in  the  web  he  span — web 

he  span — web  he  span — 
The  spider  sits  in  the  web  he  span, 

Waiting  the  fractious  fly; 
Never  a  hurried  or  zvorried  khan, 
Perfectly  pleased  zvith  his  pretty  plan. 
He's  a  regular  gentleman — 

Say,  do  yon  wonder  why? 
Being  predestinarian. 
Well  he  knoivs  that  the  web  he  span 
Is  going  to  can,  if  anything  can. 

Poor  little  Conrad  Fly. 

The  Admiral  waits  at  his  desk  ashore — 

desk  ashore — desk  ashore — 
The  Admiral  waits  at  his  desk  ashore. 

Talking  to  every  tub; 
Over  a  thousand  miles  or  more 
(Radio,  flash  and  semaphore) 
These  are  his  orders:  hear  him  roar: 

"Sink  me  another  sub! 
Peel  her  plates  and  pick  her  core, 
Cop  her  Cap.  for  a  trip  ashore; 
Throw  the  rest  to  the  ocean's  floor, 

Bread  for  Beelzebub!" 

— The  Admiral. 


PART  TWO 

Romance  Ashore 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE  SPIDER  IN  HIS  WEB 

/i  NEW  office-building  in  an  old  town.  Across 
./"Xthe  busy  street,  an  open  square,  in  which  a 
French  band  is  playing.  About  five  hundred  yards 
down-hill,  a  magnificent  harbour — so  far  as  the  work 
of  Nature  is  concerned,  the  equal  of  New  York's. 

You  climb  a  flight  of  stairs — another — four — 
because  the  war  stopped  construction  just  as  the 
elevator  was  about  to  be  installed — and  you  enter  a 
right-angled  hall  off  which  opens  a  suite  of  eight 
apartments.  Through  their  closed  doors  come  the 
tapping  of  telegraph-instruments,  the  staccato  clatter 
of  typewriters. 

You  might  well  imagine  yourself  at  the  head- 
quarters of  a  great  brokerage  firm  in  Chicago:  in- 
stead, you  are  at  a  battle-front.  You  are  in  the 
engine-room  of  that  vast  power-system  which  is  con- 
veying the  fighting  men  of  America  through  the  war 
at  sea  to  the  war  on  land.  These  are  the  executive 
bureaux  of  the  United  States  Naval  Forces  operat- 
ing in  French  waters. 

Not  one  American  in  five  thousand  realizes  what 

59 


60  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

it  is  that  these  offices  are  doing.  Not  one  in  one 
thousand  is  actively  conscious  that  such  offices  exist. 
The  traditionally  "Silent  Navy"  of  England  is  stri- 
dent in  comparison  with  the  silence  that  has  walled 
in  the  work  of  the  Navy  of  the  United  States  here 
accomplished.  Life-belted,  seasick  soldiers,  squeez- 
ing their  way  to  the  crowded  rails  of  incoming 
transports — these  cheer  till  they  are  hoarse  when, 
still  far  from  land,  the  ducking  destroyers  appear 
out  of  nothingness,  hop  about  them  in  the  Danger 
Zone  and  herd  them  safely  portwards;  but,  save 
for  the  members  of  the  staff  themselves — and  they 
either  can't  or  won't  write  about  it — few  indeed  have 
a  thorough-going  conception  of  the  tremendous  job 
that  is  being  done. 

It  is  a  job  without  equal  in  all  the  history  of  war- 
fare. The  Great  King  sent  his  hordes  from  Asia 
to  Greece ;  Hannibal  brought  his  Africans  into  Italy ; 
Caesar  passed  through  Gaul  to  Britain;  Napoleon 
crossed  the  Alps,  he  penetrated  Russia.  But  Amer- 
ica, against  an  enemy  equipped  with  all  the  devices 
of  modern  science  for  war  on  and  under  water,  is 
ferrying  an  army  millions  strong  across  the  Atlantic 
Ocean  by  means  of  the  United  States  Navy. 

In  plain  terms,  the  task  is  this :  To  get  our  men- 
ships  and  our  supply-ships  in  and  out  of  the  Danger 
Zone  with  the  utmost  speed  consistent  with  the  ut- 
most safety. 

This  means  that,  since  the  question  of  tonnage 
.is  vital,  the  empty  outgoing  boats  are  almost  as  im- 


^      THE    SPIDER    IN    HIS   WEB  61 

portant  as  are  the  boats  that  come  in  laden.  It 
means  a  system  of  communication  by  radio,  tele- 
phone and  telegraph,  of  which  the  complexity  stag- 
gers comprehension.  It  means  co-ordinating  plans 
whereby  unlighted  ships  on  a  naturally  perilous 
coast — convoys  converging  from  a  dozen  points  of 
the  compass  towards  one  point  at  one  time — may 
send  out  and  receive  reports  for  the  avoidance  of 
mines,  of  submarines  and,  what  is  no  less  dangerous, 
of  one  another.  It  means  the  establishment  of  much 
such  an  office  as  would  be  required  if  all  the  railway 
traffic  of  America  met,  near  a  given  point,  on  a 
single-track  line — the  office  of  a  sort  of  omniscient 
train-dispatcher. 

That  is  the  office  opposite  the  open  square  in 
which  the  French  band  is  playing  at  this  port. 

Even  if  not  one  gun  had  been  fired  at  sea  before 
the  August  of  1918,  for  us  ours  would  still  have 
been,  thus  far,  a  three-quarters  naval  war.  There 
was  a  night  last  autumn  when  one  German  submar- 
ine sank  four  American  boats  in  French  waters; 
Teutonic  sea  success  on  such  a  scale  has  ended — and 
if  you  could  look  at  a  certain  map,  you  would  see 
why. 

That  is  a  changing  map  in  this  office,  indicating, 
in  some  measure,  what  the  office  is  for,  and  how  it 
goes  about  it — a  big  map  drawn  on  a  large  scale. 
It  covers  a  shore-line  terrible  to  sailors  even  in  the 
days  of  peace,  the  entire  shore-line  of  France,  to 
wit,  from  a  point  on  the  Channel  near  western  Flan- 


62  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

ders  to  that  point  on  the  Bay  of  Biscay  intersected 
by  the  Spanish  border.  From  the  spot  on  this  map 
made  for  the  port  of  which  I  am  now  writing,  the 
Base  or  headquarters  town,  lines  are  drawn  inland 
to  Paris,  to  Rome,  to  Switzerland,  northward  to 
England  and  eastward  to  a  score  of  dots  along  the 
land  battle- fronts :  the  lines  indicating  routes  of 
communication  and  information  for  the  Navy. 

Alongthemap'slineof  coast,  openly  evident  in  big 
harbours,  hidden  away  in  tiny  inlets  and  tucked  be- 
tween the  rocks  of  islands  out  at  sea,  are  disks  of 
many  colours — the  destroyer,  submarine,  armored 
yacht,  mine-sweeper,  balloon  and  hydroaeroplane 
bases  that,  divided  between  American  and  French 
forces,  send  out  reports  and  ocean-policemen  up  and 
down,  in  and  out,  afloat,  in  the  sky  and  under  the 
water,  from  St.  Jean  de  Luce  to  Dunkirk. 

It  is  a  low,  level  and  lofty  spider's  web  that  is  set 
for  every  ocean  menace;  it  is  an  intricate,  ever- 
moving  line  of  defense  and  attack  that  guards  the 
transport  long  before  the  transport  sees  it.  It  is 
what  alone  gets  our  men  to  France,  and  what  alone, 
once  they  have  arrived,  gets  there  the  means  of  their 
maintenance. 

"You  may  see  it  all  and  write  of  it  all,"  said  the 
Admiral — and  if  you  can  picture  a  good-humored 
Thaddeus  Stevens,  a  little  fuller  in  the  face,  you 
can  envisage  the  Admiral.  "We  haven't  anything 
to  hide,  and  we  hope  we  haven't  anything  to  be 
ashamed  of.    There's  nothing  to  be  concealed  except 


THE    SPIDER   IN    HIS    WEB  63 

what  would  help  the  enemy.  If  there's  anything 
wrong  with  the  Navy,  we  want  it  known !" 

Rather  an  unusual  welcome!  But  then  the  Ad- 
miral was  "playing  safe" ;  the  Navy  has  almost  noth- 
ing of  which  it  need  fear  the  exposure. 

It  is  working  from  what,  to  an  American,  is  per- 
haps the  most  foreign  seaport  in  Frjmce.  The 
Phoenicians,  it  is  said,  laid  out  the  foundations  of 
that  portside  castle  in  which  the  bulk  of  our  men 
ashore  are  quartered.  Caesar,  whose  work  is 
claimed  everywhere,  of  course,  improved  it,  and  it 
was  "completed"  in  the  fourteenth  Louis's  time  by 
that  military  architect  who  perfected  the  fortress  of 
Verdun.  The  deafening  noise  of  wooden  shoes 
makes  daylong  tumult  in  its  streets.  Through  it,, 
since  this  war  began,  have  passed  troops,  English, 
Russian  and  Italian,  and  to-day,  among  the  crowds 
of  white-coifTed  native  women,  walk  soldiers  Amer- 
ican, English,  Portuguese,  French,  Algerian,  and 
Cochin-Chinese — and  each  sort  leaves  its  mark. 

Imagine  the  Admiral  at  the  center  of  the  web. 
From  him  radiate  threads  to  all  the  naval  posts  and 
all  the  inland  points  that  I  have  previously  men- 
tioned. Then  other  threads — tlireads  direct  and 
crisscross.  To  the  Army,  via  the  coding  officer  and 
superintendent  of  ports;  to  the  staff-representative 
in  Paris  and  through  him  to  the  French  Ministry  of 
Marine;  to  our  Paris  naval  attache,  the  chief  of 
aviation,  the  heads  of  the  troop  and  store  escort;  the 
commander  of  the  United  States  Navy  in  European 


64  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

waters.  More — threads  to  the  Base's  bureaux  of  pur- 
chases and  payments,  the  Haison  officer,  communi- 
cation, naval  intelHgence,  counter-espionage,  cable 
censor,  war-risk  insurance,  interallied  radio.  United 
States  Army  ports,  French  government  departments, 
Versailles  War  Council,  Naval  Liaison  Committee, 
the  Allied  Naval  Council  in  London.  And  so  on,  et 
cetera  and  so  forth.  Directly  under  the  Admiral's 
control  are  a  few  little  items  like  the  following : 

Vessels  at  this  port,  Yard  Boatswain's  office, 

Coastal  convoy  escort,  Radio  repair-shop, 

Tug  fleet,  Naval  magazine, 

Naval  port  officer.  Naval  hospitals, 

Marine  superintendent  Shore  patrol, 

with  army.  Docks, 

Supply  office,  Canteen, 

Repair-shop,  Oiling  stations. 

Repair-ship,  Coastal  stations, 

Barracks,  Coaling  stations. 

Supplies,  Pay-office. 
Personnel  department, 

After  taking  care  of  his  part  of  the  matters  in- 
volved therein,  the  Admiral  should  need  some  sleep. 
As  closely  as  my  lay  mind  can  figure,  he  ought  to 
manage  to  get  quite  two  hours  out  of  every  twenty- 
four — if  his  bedside  telephone  doesn't  interrupt  him. 

Each  division  has  subdivisions  under  it.  The 
Naval  Constructor  is  in  charge  of  material  and  sup- 
plies, and  the  office  of  Material  and  Supplies  has 
bureaux  for  contracts,  fuel  and  provisions,  not  to 


(c)   Committee    uu    Public   Information 

Admiral  Wilson,  chief   of   fleet   in   France,   and   Admiral 
Moreau 


THE    SPIDER   IN    HIS    WEB  65 

mention  one  deputy-supply  officer  in  every  district. 
The  innocent-appearing  head  of  "inspections" 
branches  out  into  ship  organization,  gunnery  and  a 
mysterious  department  labeled  "Doctrine,"  that,  as 
you  will  later  see,  has  no  relation  to  theology.  "Op- 
erations" stretches  down  to  "Movement  Orders" ; 
"Public  Works"  controls  "Civil  Engineers" ;  the 
Flag  Secretary  commands  a  dozen  branches  of 
which  the  least  are  boards  of  examination,  promo- 
tion and  investigation. 

Consider  again  the  office  of  Communication:  it 
has  three  subordinate  offices,  those  of  the  "Coding 
Group,"  which  seems  to  concern  itself  with  the 
manufacture  of  new  codes;  plain  "Codes,"  which 
destroys  old  ones  and  files  documents,  and  "Radio," 
which  governs  three  subdivisions,  ending  in  one  that 
has  progeny  of  its  own. 

I  was  trying  to  explain  the  situation  to  James  Ha- 
zen  Hyde.  I  said  the  Admiral  and  his  staff  re- 
minded me  of  a  trust  president  and  his  lieutenants 
putting  through  some  gigantic  and  endless  deal  in 
"industrials." 

"The  Admiral,"  said  Mr.  Hyde,  "must  be  like  the 
late  E.  H.  Harriman.  He  was  the  only  man  I  ever 
knew  that  could  talk  over  three  long-distance  'phones 
on  three  different  subjects  at  one  time." 

The  Admiral  and  his  staff  sleep  in  rooms  just  be- 
low their  office.  That  is,  they  say  they  sleep.  I 
asked  the  Admiral's  orderly  if  he  had  ever  seen  him 
in  bed,  and  he  said : 


66  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

"No,  sir." 

Anyhow,  that  bedside  telephone  is  a  fact.  Th^ 
rooms  are  pleasant  and,  unless  I  am  very  much  mis- 
taken, I  used  to  sit,  long  before  I  went  there  to  din- 
ner, in  some  of  their  easy  chairs  when  they  were  in 
the  smoking-room  of  a  certain  North  German  Lloyd 
liner.  The  point,  however,  is  that  I  did  pass  a  re- 
cent evening  in  the  Admiral's  living  quarters — one 
long  remembers  American  oysters  and  American  ice- 
cream found  in  wartime  France! — and  that  I  then 
had  a  chance  to  see  how  this  man's  is  a  day-and-night 
job. 

It  all  began  very  easily  and  comfortably,  and  the 
Admiral,  after  a  long  day's  work,  spoke  of  how 
good  it  was  to  draw  his  chair  close  to  the  open  fire. 
One  of  the  three  guests  had  to  leave  early,  because, 
although  he  was  our  host's  nephew,  he  had  volun- 
teered as  a  common  seaman  and  had  to  be  aboard 
ship  betimes.  That  orderly  of  the  commander,  a 
Lehigh  graduate  with  six  months'  experience  of  the 
service,  muttered  in  the  hall : 

"This  is  the  most  democratic  Navy  I  ever  saw  :  an 
admiral  helping  a  gob  on  with  his  coat!" 

But  then  we  settled  down  for  a  quiet  evening. 
The  only  mention  of  war  was  made  when  "Upstairs" 
sent  in  the  radio-caught  German  press-report  for  the 
day  just  finished — over  there,  we  set  store  by  that 
portion  signed  "Ludendorf" — and  we  had  talked 
for  perhaps  half  an  hour  of  a  dozen  other  things, 
of  storms  at  sea,  of  strange  lands,  of  the  beauty  of 


THE    SPIDER   IN    HIS    WEB  67 

the  square  rigger  and,  most  of  all,  of  home,  when 
"Upstairs"  again  interrupted.  It  brought  this  tele- 
graphic message : 

"U.  S.  S.  ,  with  No.  1  hold  flooded,  draw- 
ing twenty-six  feet  forward,  beached  in  exposed  po- 
sition one  thousand  feet  off  Audierne  breakwater, 
sand  and  rock  bottom,  at  low  water.  Ship  pounding 
heavily  and  filling.  All  compartments  flooded.  Two 
ten-inch  pumps  make  no  headway.  Divers  from 
ship  report  six  feet  of  skeg  carried  away.  Extent 
of  damage  to  hull  not  known,  but  probably  holes 
under  holds  1,  2  and  4.  Officer  No.  188,  assisted 
by  subordinate,  who  is  experienced  wrecker,  direct- 
ing salvage  operations;  but  reports  vessel  can  not 
be  floated  without  salvage  equipment,  including 
boilers,  pumps,  divers  and  lighters.    Advise." 

A  night-and-day  job,  you  see ! 


Balloons  and  hydroaeroplanes. 

Which  in  the  heavens  be. 
And  all  yon  little  dancing  ships 

That  dart  about  the  sea, 
Remember,  though  you  get  away 

To  any  farthest  place. 
There's  some  one  that's  a-zvatching  you 

From  back  here,  at  the  Base. 

Suppose  your  rudder  gets  a-jam? 

There's  gossip  in  a  zvhale! 
Your  oil-gauge  doesn't  register? 

The  air's  a  tattletale! 
And  zvould  you  try  to  hurry  back 

And  give  the  nezi's  a  chase? 
It's  sure  to  beat  you  homezvard  and 

To  meet  you  at  the  Base. 

So  zvhen  you've  failed  to  spot  the  sub 

That  limping  homezvard  goes, 
Or  when  you  make  your  contact  late, 

Don't  say:  "Nobody  knozvs" ; 
But  polish  your  excuses  up 

And  pull  your  zvisest  face: 
They'll  be  asking  awkward  questions,  zvhen 

You  see  them  at  the  Base. 

— Staff. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  MEN  BEHIND  THE  SHIPS 

COME  back  with  me,  please,  to  that  suite  of  new 
offices  in  this  old  town  from  which  radiates  the 
intricate  web  circumscribing  the  vast  activities  of 
the  American  Naval  Forces  based  on  France.  There 
is  adventure  hidden  there. 

The  Admiral's  workroom  boasts  the  large,  clean- 
swept  desk  of  a  chief-executive  whose  big  business 
is  systematically  administered;  you  have  the  sense 
of  a  ship  so  well  ordered  that,  though  it  moves  with 
the  highest  efficiency  and  at  top  speed,  the  discipline 
is  invisible,  the  machinery  inaudible.  It  is  when 
you  pass  into  the  next  office,  the  office  of  the  chief 
of  staff,  that  you  begin  to  see  the  well-greased 
wheels  go  round.    There  is  a  sign  on  its  outer  door : 

Chief  of  Staff  and  Staff  Representative 
for 
Y.  M.  C.  A.,  Y.  M.  H.  A.,  K.  of  C.  and 
Y.  W.  C.  A.  Workers 
and 
Itinerant    Doctors,    Detectives,    Authors,    Investi- 
gators, Commissioners,  Naval  Officers  off 
Station,     Ladies     in     Distress, 
Birds  of  Passage 
and 
The  Closure  of  Saloons  and  Bars. 

Some  light-minded   fellow-officer  put  that  sign 
69 


70  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

there,  yet  it  is  a  laugh  with  the  truth  in  it.  Ad- 
miral Wilson's  chief  of  staff  does  indeed  have  to 
take  care  of  the  matters  detailed  in  the  sign  as  well 
as  anything  else  in  his  multifarious  naval  duties  that 
turns  up  meanwhile. 

He  checks  and  reports  to  the  Admiral,  for  in- 
stance, all  the  bulletins  of  every  sort  of  activity  in 
our  fleet's  zones  of  operation — of  which  more  later. 
Under  his  eye  is  kept  a  day-by-day  record  of  the 
work  done  by  every  boat  of  every  sort,  a  diary  of 
each,  rather  like  the  books  of  a  factory's  time- 
keeper, so  that  neither  men  nor  engines  may  be 
overworked  to  the  point  of  inefficiency.  He  deals 
with  all  requests  for  leave — real  comedies  in  the 
making  and  the  bared  bones  of  living  tragedies.  I 
recall  one  succinct  petition : 

"Reason:  Mother  just  sent  to  hospital  in  New 
York,  fatally  ill;  wife  about  to  have  child." 

To  him,  too,  falls  for  answer  the  bulk  of  the  cor- 
respondence; I  mention  some  of  the  general  heads 
under  which  were  grouped  the  mass  of  one  day's 
documents  that  I  saw  in  the  wire  basket  on  his  desk : 

Installation  of  Ice-machines. 
Replacement  of  Damaged  Boats. 
Request  for  Communication  Officer. 
A  Question  of  Pay  Accounts. 
Installation  of  Electric  Leads  through 

Gun  Mounts. 
Ventilation  Nets  for  Three  Destroyers. 


THE    MEN    BEHIND    THE    SHIPS     71 

Requests  for  Leave. 

Orders  with  French  Factories. 

Inspection  of  Armed  Guards. 

Towing  Winches  Needed. 

Kite  Balloons  Required. 

Bill  for  Pumping  Vidage  Pits. 

Applications  for  Employment. 

Campaign  Orders. 

Pilotage-Pay  Disputes. 

Personal  Records  of  Certain  Officers. 

Permits  for  Truck  Drivers. 

Construction  of  New  Oil  Tanks. 

As  if  this  were  not  enough,  the  chief  of  staff  has 
a  erood  deal  to  do  with  the  formulation  and  trans- 
mission  of  doctrine.  He  is  a  kind  of  college  of 
cardinals,  or,  rather,  a  congregation  of  the  Naval 
Holy  See. 

Doctrine,  I  have  elsewhere  said,  is  not  theological 
in  the  Navy,  but  it  is  to  the  Navy  what  the  other  sort 
of  doctrine  is  to  the  Church,  what  policy  is  to  state- 
craft. It  is  formulated  to  obviate  the  need  of  the 
repetition  of  general  principles  in  each  instance  of 
individual  movement,  but  it  has  to  be  kept  constantly 
up-to-date  in  order  to  meet  those  changes  of  pro- 
cedure on  the  part  of  the  enemy  that  are  as  con- 
stantly kept  up-to-date  in  order  to  meet  it.  For  in- 
stance, every  time  a  convoy  goes  out,  it  is  necessary 
that  its  commanders,  and  the  commanders  of  its 
guardian  ships,  balloons  and  hydroaeroplanes,  should 
each  be  informed  of  such  developments  in  the  coastal 
situation  as  might  in  any  way  affect  any  special 


72  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

commander;  but,  again  to  use  the  ecclesiastical  fig- 
ure, it  should  be  a  work  of  supererogation  to  detail 
the  general  methods  of  the  enemy  and  the  general 
methods  to  resist  or  avoid  them  in  their  usual  ex- 
pression. The  aim  of  a  convoy  is  such-and-such; 
therefore,  these  members  should  be  so-and-so  and 
those  this-and-that — submarines  have  been  attacking 
thus;  therefore,  transports  ought  to  form  in  the  fol- 
lowing manner,  destroyers  in  the  next  following; 
whereas,  in  the  event  of  onslaught  or  sinking,  the 
first-named  boats  ought  to  maneuver  in  this  fashion, 
the  second-named  in  the  other  fashion.  And  so  on. 
A  business  complicated  and  fluent,  but  weighty  and 
important,  abstract  in  the  learning,  concrete  in  its 
results,  a  matter  of  life  and  death. 

There  is  no  need  here  to  go  into  the  Flag-Office  or 
into  the  office  of  the  stenographers;  no  need  to  tell 
of  the  filing-system  and  the  card-catalogues. 
Enough  that  they  are  there,  and  that,  though  mod- 
ern business  methods  have  tarnished  the  romance  of 
naval  warfare,  as  waged  by  Barry  and  John  Paul 
Jones,  they  have  applied  the  new  polish  of  system, 
which  only  renders  the  basic  romance  the  more  ef- 
fective. Such  inventions  as  wireless  telegraphy 
have  made  this  sort  of  thing  imperative. 

The  wireless  telegraphy  of  these  administrative 
offices  is  received  in  and  sent  out  of  a  little  room 
around  the  corner  of  the  hall,  into  the  common- 
place center  of  which  dart,  out  of  the  air  and  over 
countless  miles  of  sea,  sharp  cries  of  distress  and 


THE    MEN    BEHIND    THE    SHH^S     73 

brief  chants  of  victory.  All  day  and  all  night  men 
with  intent  faces  sit  here  over  instruments  always 
operating.  They  comb  the  sky,  listening-in  on  three 
different  wave-lengths,  they  receive  requests  for 
help  and  send  out  orders  to  give  assistance  far  up 
in  the  English  Channel  and  far  out  across  the  Bay 
of  Biscay. 

And  they  hear  other  things  than  appeals.  Once 
I  entered  the  room  with  Commander  Evans,  the  son 
of  Robley  Evans,  Admiral.  A  worker  spoke  with- 
out raising  his  eyes  from  the  key. 

"Caught  something,  sir,"  he  said. 

"What  is  it?"  asked  my  companion. 

"German  message  coming  in,  sir," 

"Code  that  our  code-room  knows  ?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

We  got  it  five  minutes  later.  It  was  neatly  typed 
and  handed  to  the  Admiral  by  his  aide.  And  it  was 
something  that  the  Germans  didn't  want  us  to  know. 

You  might  think  that  they  became  hardened,  those 
operators,  that  they  came  to  regard  each  call  for 
help  as  some  hospital  internes  regard  a  "case."  They 
don't, 

"We  got  an  S.  O.  S.  from  off  the  coast  of  Ice- 
land yesterday,"  a  staff  officer  told  me,  "and  the  re- 
ceiving operator  couldn't  understand  why  we  didn't 
dispatch  a  destroyer," 

Yet  they  are  unusual  men.  One  of  them  recently 
had  a  difficulty, 

"I  inherited  nine  thousand  dollars  and  a  voice," 


74  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

he  said.  "I  spent  the  money  and  four  years  in  Paris 
on  the  voice.  Then  I  enhsted  when  we  came  in  the 
war,  because  I  thought  I  ought  to.  Now,  when  it's 
too  late,  I  get  the  one  big  chance  of  my  Hfe — I  get 
an  offer  to  sing  in  Paris  at  the  Opera." 

He  didn't  lose  that  chance.  He  was  promptly  de- 
tailed from  Base  for  day-work  at  our  Embassy.  You 
can  hear  him,  if  you  are  in  Paris,  singing  two  even- 
ings a  week  on  the  famous  stage  that  is  at  once  the 
envy  and  despair  of  every  aspirant  to  operatic  fame. 

Sometimes  that  radio-room  can  trace  the  cruise  of 
a  German  submarine  solely  by  the  wirelessed  reports 
of  its  victims. 

"In  the  old  days,  before  we  got  the  situation  in 
hand,"  said  an  operator,  "we  once  got  quickly  suc- 
cessive reports  of  a  series  of  sinkings.  By  the  lati- 
tude and  longitude  sent  us,  and  by  the  similarity  of 
the  methods  of  attack  as  well  as  by  the  times  given, 
we  could  tell  that  these  were  the  work  of  one  single 
fellow.  He  knew  the  French  coast  as  if  it  were  his 
own  parlor  floor — they  all  do — and  he  was  going 
right  ahead  at  the  steady  rate  of  one  sinking  per 
night.  We  were  worried,  because  we  had  a  convoy 
due  in,  right  across  his  general  field.  Then  we  got 
news  of  his  eleventh  sinking.  We  knew  his  type 
generally  carries  only  a  dozen  torpedoes,  and,  you 
bet  you,  we  were  relieved." 

"Did  you  wait  for  his  twelfth?"  I  asked. 

"We  never  heard  of  it,"  said  the  operator. 


':i 


A  commander  with  the  author  at  his  right 


THE    MEN    BEHIND    THE    SHIPS     75 

The  officer  that  was  with  me  whispered  the  end 
of  the  story :    "That  fellow  never  got  home." 

And  he  told  me  how  he  knew  it. 

While  he  spoke,  the  operator  was  recording  an- 
other sort  of  message.  It  was  received  in  code,  of 
course ;  but  decoded  it  read : 

"Blank  convoy,  ocean  escort  U.  S.  S.  ,  ex- 
pects to  arrive  at  latitude  so-and-so,  longitude  so- 
and-so,  6  A.  M.,  April  30th.     Before  reaching  this 

point,   it  will  be  on  a  course  degrees  true. 

Course  after  passing  this  point degrees  

minutes.    Speed, knots." 

This  was  a  piece  of  routine  work,  but  it  is  routine 
work  of  the  most  vital  import.  Every  convoy  keeps 
these  offices  constantly  posted  as  to  its  progress,  the 
reports  are  recorded  in  the  daily  chart  in  the  chart- 
room,  where  the  activities  of  submarines  and  the 
presence  of  mines  are  also  marked  down,  and  so 
every  movement  in  the  zone  may  be  dealt  with  by  or- 
ders sent  out  via  radio. 

Nearly  all  messages  go  and  come  in  code,  and 
there  are  at  least  a  score  of  codes,  each  changed  at 
frequent  intervals.  The  code-room  is  between  the 
executive  offices  and  the  operator's  office,  and  only 
a  pair  of  holes  in  the  intervening  walls  offer  com- 
munication. If  the  message  is  outgoing,  it  is  written 
in  plain  English  by  one  of  the  Admiral's  staff,  handed 
under  the  momentarily  raised  slide  that  elsewhile 
covers  a  wall  hole  and,  in  the  code-room,  translated 


76  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

into  cipher,  whereupon  it  is  passed  through  the  cor- 
responding hole  to  the  radio-room  for  transmission. 
If  the  message  is  incoming,  this  process  is  reversed, 
and  the  message  is  translated  by  the  code  experts  for 
the  staff. 

You  are  familiar  with  library  reading-rooms  in 
which  a  printed  sign  commands  "Silence,"  but  you 
do  not  know  the  silence  of  that  code-room  unless  you 
have  been  there — or  have  been,  at  one  time  or  an- 
other, shut  in  a  padded  cell.  Locks  and  keys,  bolts 
and  bars,  combination  safes  and  outdoor  guards  pro- 
tect it,  and  at  its  desks  sit  men  with  the  most  con- 
centrated faces  in  the  world.  One  of  these  was  in- 
troduced to  me,  and  I  saw  him  working. 

"We  found  him  in  the  armed-yacht  fleet,"  I  was 
told.  "He'd  enlisted  as  a  common  seaman.  He  is 
forty-odd  years  old,  a  Harvard  graduate  magna 
cum  laude  in  the  classics,  speaks  six  modern  lan- 
guages, is  rich  in  his  own  right,  is  president  of  a  fa- 
mous musical  society,  makes  poetry  and  publishes 
his  own  volumes  of  verse.  It  turned  out  that  he  had 
written  a  couple  of  books  on  hieroglyphics  and  made 
a  hobby  of  cryptograms.  We  thought  he'd  be  just 
the  man  for  this  job — and  he  is.  He  has  only  one 
fault — when  part  of  a  received  or  intercepted  mes- 
sage has  been  garbled  in  transmission,  though  we 
might  easily  guess  the  garbled  portion  by  its  con- 
nection with  the  rest  of  the  context,  he  insists  on  at- 
tacking that  first,  as  if  it  were  a  jigsaw  puzzle, 
working  it  out,  letter  by  letter,  or  sign  by  sign,  and 


THE    MEN    BEHIND   THE    SHIPS     77 

writing  a  complete  memorandum  on  just  how  each 

mistake  must  have  occurred." 

And  then  I  went  into  the  chart-room — 

But  the  chart-room  is  a  place  for  the  instantaneous 

registration  of  romance-in-being. 

And  that  romance  must  be  "Continued  in  Our 

Next." 


Three  Hello's  and  a  "location"? 

Put  the  Old  Man  wise,  you  duh! 
(Three  Hello's  and  a  location 

Means  a  sub!) 

Ten  of  us  here  in  a  lox  lo 

Room  zuith  a  ceiling  ten  feet  high. 
Rapid-reading  radio-men, 

Listening  while  the  fleets  go  by. 
Murmurs,  cries,  appeals,  and  zvarnings. 

Nightmare-shrieks  and  fighting-jeers 
Clamor  through  the  black  receivers 

Clamped  forever  at  our  ears. 
Day  and  night,  and  nothing  doing; 
Only  routine  rounds  pursuing 

On  tlie  station; 
Then,  from  somezuhere  mid-Atlantic, 
Shrill,  staccato,  helpless,  frantic, 

Three  Hello's  and  a  location — 
Some  poor  devil  (zvish  him  zvell!) 
Blown  to  bits  and  bound  for  Hell. 

"What  a  lovely  summer  morning!" 

All  the  Old  Man's  callers  say. 
(Here's  a  rammed  barque  off  the  Sables, 

Wants  assistance  right  azvay.)     .     .     . 
All  e.vcept  the  zi'atches  sleeping 

Through  the  star-calm  August  night — 
(Armen  Archie's  off  St.  Palais, 

Laying  eggs  of  dynamite.) 
"The  Mil  ford  Haven  convoy's  caught!" — 

The  Drayton's  on  that  trip. 
"Ariel's  propeller's  busted." — 

Tell  the  mother-ship. 
"Where  is  transport  No.  80?" — 

"Chaser  dj  is  gone." — 
"Where  in  thunder  is  the  Harvard?" 

(Anchored  dozvn  in  Quiberon!) 


"Mines  fresh  placed  in  Channel  f'-^ 

Change  the  route  for  convoy  2! 
"There's  a  pozvder-hoat  a-blasing" — 

Tell  the  chief:  that's  all  we  do. 
Tell  the  chief  of  staff,  and  hurry, 

So's  he'll  tell  the  Admiral; 
He'll  give  orders;  we  must  listen 

For  another  crowding  call. 
Day  and  night,  and  nothing  doing  f 
Only  routine  rounds  pursuing f 

But  for  us,  where  would  you  be? 
Little,  nervous  men  and  sallow. 
We  sit  here  and— "'Alio!  'Alio!! 

'Alio!!!  5:2;  four-nine  three!" 

Three  Hello's  and  a  "location"? 

Put  the  Old  Man  zvise,  you  dub! 
(Three  Hello's  and  a  location 

Means  a  sub !) 

— The  Dash-Dotters. 


CHAPTER  VI 


ADVENTURE  BY  WIRELESS 


yiBOUT  that  chart-room  in  the  shore-offices  at 
JTx,  our  Base-headquarters,  from  which  are  directed 
all  the  intricate  activities  of  our  Naval  Forces  along 
the  wide  coast  of  France  and  far  out  to  sea.  It  is 
in  the  chart-room  that  there  is  registered,  immedi- 
ately the  sleepless  radio  sends  word  of  it,  each  de- 
tected manifestation  of  the  enemy  afloat,  each 
advance  of  each  transport  or  cargo-ship,  each  move- 
ment of  each  American  destroyer,  armed  yacht, 
observation-balloon  and  hydroaeroplane. 

There  is  no  outside  handle  to  the  door  of  that 
apartment.  When  closed,  it  locks  automatically — 
from  the  inside.  The  chart-room  is  no  place  for  in- 
terruption. 

So  soon  as  you  enter  it,  you  perceive  why. 

It  is  well  named.  Charts — charts — charts.  On 
the  walls;  on  the  huge  drawing-table  that  nearly 
touches  every  one  of  the  four  walls.  Comprehensive 
charts  and  detailed ;  all  the  coast  and  all  the  ocean, 
and  then  the  coast  and  ocean  seemingly  yard  by 
yard.  There  are  the  necessary  instruments  about; 
there  are  some  technical  books  on  the  mantelpiece 
(but  I  caught  sight  of  a  Baudelaire  among  them!), 
and  the  door  is  adorned  with  a  rogues'  gallery  of  ' 

80 


ADVENTURE   BY   WIRELESS         81 

photographs  of  German  submarine-commanders,  the 
notorious  Otto  Steinbrink  and  others — such  prints 
as  you  see  in  poHce-stations,  portraying  escaped  pris- 
oners and  criminals  with  prices  on  their  heads; — 
but  that  is  not  all,  for  the  rest  of  it  is  charts  and 
nothing  else  besides,  each  chart  dotted  by  scores  of 
little  markers  continuously  on  the  move  in  accord- 
ance with  information  continuously  received. 

First  of  all,  in  this  room,  there  is  the  general 
chart.  It  occupies  all  the  big  table,  and  on  it  every- 
thing is  marked,  permanent  and  passing.  Then  there 
are  the  moonlight,  tidal,  aerial  and  weather  charts 
and  reports,  drawn  up  weekly  or  daily  as  the  case 
may  be,  by  coastal  or  weather  experts,  the  details 
noted  periodically  and  transmitted  in  code,  by  radio, 
to  our  ships  at  sea.  Also  there,  and  also  to  be  noted 
and  transmitted,  are  daily  messages  from  our  Navy's 
representative  in  the  French  Ministry  of  Marine  at 
Paris,  giving  all  the  news  from  all  European  waters 
and  locating  every  mine  known  to  be  extant,  every 
enemy  submarine  known  to  be  active. 

"And  that's  not  all,"  said  Commander  Kurtz,  pre- 
siding. 

It  wasn't.  No  purely  local  information — and  the 
term  "local,"  in  naval  mouths,  covers,  it  seems,  miles 
and  miles  of  coast  and  sea — no  purely  local  infor- 
mation, I  say,  is  considered  good  if  more  than  two 
days  old.  It  is  Oslerized  at  the  age  of  forty-eight 
hours. 

"You  see,"  said  this  cicerone,  "it's  hard  to  make 


82  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

predictions  from  a  daily  chart,  because  submarines 
are,  unfortunately,  not  oysters — they  can  move  and 
do.  So  it's  necessary  for  us  to  keep  up,  and  send 
out,  fleet-bulletins  and  information-slips  from 
weekly  and  monthly  charts  which  pretty  well  cover 
the  area  that  each  submarine  is  working  in." 

He  showed  me  the  file  of  monthly  charts,  hung 
one  above  another  on  the  wall.  These  deal  with  the 
American  zone  in  French  waters  and  the  especial 
area  for  the  safety  of  which  Admiral  Wilson  and 
his  staff  and  fleet  are  actually  responsible.  A  dot 
marks  the  place  of  each  success  of  each  German 
submarine — every  dot  records  the  sinking  of  an 
Allied  ship.  That  chart  covering  the  first  month 
of  the  present  American  regime  looked  like  a  fly- 
specked  section  of  wall-paper  in  a  long-unoccupied 
house  that  a  new  housewife  has  just  moved  into; 
the  chart  for  the  month  preceding  my  first  visit  there 
resembled  the  same  section  of  wall-paper  after  the 
good  housewife  has  been  at  work  on  it. 

Remember  always  that  the  job  of  this  office  and 
its  fleet  is  safely  to  get  the  scores  of  convoys  in  and 
out  of  the  American  zone.  The  chart-room's  part 
becomes,  then,  obvious.  Daily,  at  a  given  hour,  its 
codifications  of  the  sea-situation  are  sent  out,  in 
those  ever-changing  cryptograms,  by  the  radio-corps 
to  all  Allied  ships  known  to  be  in  or  approaching  our 
region;  and  daily  too,  a  certain  series  of  warnings 
— though  of  a  nature  that  can  not  help  the  enemy — 
are  similarly  thrown  broadcast  in  plain  English  for 


ADVENTURE    BY    WIRELESS         83 

the  benefit  of  approaching  neutral  or  friendly  craft 
that  have  not  notified  us  of  their  intentions. 

Enter  messenger  from  the  code-room  (he  enters 
every  five  minutes).  He  hands  a  typed  shp  of  pa- 
per to  Commander  Kurtz,  or  to  whatever  officer 
happens  to  be  in  charge  at  the  moment. 

"Coastal  Convoy  No.  21  passes  such  and  such  a 
point." 

The  pin  symbolizing  Coastal  Convoy  No.  21  is 
moved  on  a  trio  of  charts. 

"Mine-area  reported  ten  miles  north  of ,  be- 
tween such  and  such  points." 

More  pins  are  produced — gray  ones — and  stabbed 
into  the  parchments. 

Then: 

"Channel  10  barred  to  navigation." 

Next: 

"Submarine  sighted  in  this  latitude,  that  longi- 
tude." (Yellow  pins  this  time;  the  yellow  sign  of 
smallpox!) 

"Coastal  Convoy  No.  30  passing light." 

"Coastal  Convoy  No.  21  now  sighted  twelve  miles 
off ." 

So  new  pins  go  in,  and  old  ones  are  moved  for- 
ward or  back — each  pin  labeled — and,  meanwhile, 
the  news  thus  recorded  is  being  transmitted  to  the 
ships  at  sea,  even  to  the  transports  bringing  in  our 
boys  from  far  out  upon  the  ocean.  To  watch  the 
movements  of  those  pins  upon  the  ruled  charts  is  like 
watching  the  progress  of  a  football-game  as  it  is  re- 


84  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

corded  on  the  automatic  bulletin-board  outside  of  a 
newspaper-office,  except  that  there  are  a  hundred 
balls  "in  play." 

The  general  chart  is,  you  will  recall,  that  upon  the 
table.  On  the  right-hand  wall  therefrom  hangs  that 
especially  devoted  to  mines  and  submarines.  We 
were  one  afternoon  standing  before  the  latter  when 
there  were  handed  in  a  pair  of  messages  received 
within  a  few  minutes  of  each  other.  Both  told  of 
an  enemy  submarine  sighted;  the  two  spots  indi- 
cated were  near  together. 

The  recording-officer  whistled  as  he  shoved  home 
the  yellow  pins. 

"We've  got  a  store-ship  convoy  coming  in  right 
there  with  one  destroyer,"  he  said;  "and  she's  just 
about  due." 

Quickly  he  verified  his  fears  by  a  consultation  of 
the  general  and  convoy  charts.  He  had  been  right. 
Generally  there  were  more  destroyers,  but  on  this 
occasion  some  accident — some  accident  that,  in  or- 
dinary circumstances,  would  have  been  trivial — had 
upset  the  regular  scheme.  He  set  the  radio-room 
to  flashing  out  its  warnings. 

There  was  an  ugly  ten  minutes. 

"It's  a  double  convoy,"  said  the  officer.  "A  lit- 
tle east  of  where  that  sub  is,  the  British  destroyers 
are  to  meet  the  fleet,  cut  out  the  ships  bound  for 
England  and  head  them  for  home.  Then  our  fel- 
low brings  the  rest  in  here."  He  paused — a  mo- 
ment.   Then  he  added :  "Or  tries  to." 


ADVENTURE   BY   WIRELESS         85 

The  code-room  messenger  came  in.  We  grabbed 
his  slip  of  paper : 

"Warning  acknowledged." 

Again  we  waited.     Presently: 

"Have  made  contact  with  British  destroyers  as 
per  previous  orders.  They  have  cut  out  (here  fol- 
lowed the  number)  ships  and  are  proceeding." 

We  breathed  a  little  easier.  Still  easier  we 
breathed  when  we  heard  that  our  destroyer  and  its 
wards  were  safe  within  the  harbour's  submarine-nets. 
It  was  then  that  there  came  a  fourth  message;  it 
came  from  the  British  portion  of  the  convoy:  they 
had  been  attacked  thirty  minutes  after  leaving  the 
American  zone  and  entering  the  English  and  had 
lost  a  ship  and  half  of  its  crew. 

*'But  all  the  Allied  navies  are  doing  good  work," 
the  recording-officer  said.  He  expatiated  on  what 
the  French  have  accomplished — "miracles,"  he 
called  them — in  spite  of  material  reduced  before  the 
war.  "And,"  he  said,  "when  the  big  need  for  land- 
fighters  arose  in  the  crisis  of  Mons,  the  French  Navy 
sent  thousands  of  its  sailors — there  aren't  any  bet- 
ter in  the  world — to  shoulder  muskets  inland."  He 
went  on  to  speak  of  the  British  boats  and  their  tri- 
umphs, but  of  these  things  Americans  have  already 
been  informed.  My  part,  here  and  now,  is  to  write 
of  the  Americans  in  French  waters,  and  I  record 
one  out  of  many  scores  of  instances  of  American  as- 
sistance to  a  British  ship  in  these  waters  only  because 
it  happened  then  to  come  under  my  direct  notice. 


86  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

We  were  in  the  chart-room,  plotting  out,  as  its 
reports  came  in,  the  progress  of  an  American  con- 
voy. That  convoy  was  still  well  out  at  sea;  it  had 
not  entered  what  is  technically  the  Danger  Zone, 
and  the  guardian  American  destroyers,  dispatched 
from  this  port  to  meet  it,  were  not  yet  due  to  "make 
contact."  The  radio-room  received  a  warning  from 
the  English  observation-service ;  it  was  decoded  and 
brought  to  us :  an  unexpected  enemy  submarine  had 
just  been  reported  by  a  British  transport  carrying 
Canadian  troops,  far  out  there  and  in  the  course 
that  our  convoy  had  been  directed  to  pursue.  Imag- 
ine, if  you  can,  the  rush  to  recode  and  transmit  this 
news,  with  orders  of  a  change  of  course  to  the  con- 
voy and  a  new  contact-point  to  the  destroyers.  It 
was  done,  however,  in  fifteen  minutes,  and  the  con- 
voy and  destroyers  met  and  came,  by  a  fresh  route, 
safe  into  port. 

Of  all  these  things  the  chart-room  keeps  a  detailed 
diary,  precisely  such  a  log  as  a  ship's  master  keeps 
on  his  voyage.  It  is  full  of  tragic  narratives,  that 
communication-book,  but  of  late  its  stories  show  an 
increasing  tendency  toward  the  "happy  ending." 
There  are  even  recorded  cases  where  a  prowling 
submarine  seems  to  have  run  away  merely  because 
its  wireless-operators  overheard  our  buzzing  mes- 
sages about  them  and  knew  thereby,  even  if  they 
could  understand  no  more,  that  we  must  be  sending 
our  destroyers  to  their  neighborhood. 

Take,  for  example,  this  bit  of  "intercepted  log" : 


ADVENTURE   BY   WIRELESS         87 

The  date  is  somewhere  in  late  April.  The  first 
part  was  "caught"  by  our  radio-men ;  the  whole  was 
duly  entered  in  this  chart-room's  diary.  I  change 
only  the  names  of  the  boats  involved. 

"1:15  p.  M. — British  merchant-ship  Emma 
sends :  *To  all  British  men-of-war.  Am  being 
chased  and  shelled  by  enemy  submarine,  longitude 
,  latitude .' 

"2 :20  p.  M. — Message  from  the  Emma  has  been 
picked  up  by  the  U.  S.  Destroyer  Lawrence,  which 
replies  to  the  Emma:  'What  is  your  speed?' 

"2  :25  p.  M. — Emma  answers :  'Eight  knots  on 
a  course  of by .' 

"2  :30  p.  M. — Destroyer  Lawrence,  which  is  with 
Convoy  No.  99,  signals  its  fellow-destroyers  that 
are  with  that  convoy  to  remain  on  that  duty  and 
adds  that  it  itself  is  'going  to  the  aid  of  the  Emma/ 

"2 :32  p.  M. — Laivrence  radios  Base-headquarters : 
'Am  going  to  aid  of  British  merchantman  Emma, 
which  is  being  shelled  and  chased  by  enemy  sub- 
marine at  longitude ,  latitude .' 

"2 :45  p.  M. — Laivrence  reports  to  Base-head- 
quarters :  'Am  on  my  way.' 

"3  P.  M. — Emma  radios :  'Submarine  has  ceased 
firing  and  submerged.' " 

Either  that  submarine  read  the  message,  or  else 
it  saw  the  smoke  of  the  approaching  Lawrence. 
The  point  is  that  that  attack  was  discontinued,  and 
the  British  ship  saved. 

We  were  in  the  chart-room  early  one  morning. 


88  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

A  convoy  bearing  thousands  of  American  troops, 
called  for  because  of  the  big  German  offensive  that 
began  in  March  of  1918,  was  due  at  a  given  spot  on 
the  ocean  at  6  a.  m.  The  destroyers  that  were  to 
bring  it  in  had  set  forth.  Atmospheric  conditions 
were  bad  for  wireless-work,  and  communication  had 
first  become  faulty  and  was  then  lost  altogether,  an 
event  that  does  not  happen  often,  but  is  most  dis- 
concerting when  it  does  occur. 

Then,  without  warning,  radio-communication 
from  another  source  than  our  destroyers  or  the  con- 
voy became  active.  A  German  submarine  was  re- 
ported at  a  point  south  of  that  at  which  our  convoy 
was  soon  to  arrive,  but  uncomfortably  close. 

We  tried  to  get  the  destroyers,  and  failed. 

We  tried  to  get  the  convoy :  no  answer. 

Again  news  of  the  submarine.  It  was  going 
north.  It  was  nearer  the  convoy.  Orders  were 
shouted.  Messages  shot  from  chart-room  to  cypher- 
room,  and  from  cypher-room  to  the  room  in  which 
the  staff's  wireless-operators  work. 

A  third  report  of  the  submarine.  Having  pro- 
ceeded still  farther  north,  it  was  seen  by  a  big  French 
fisherman,  who  had  been  blown  out  of  his  course, 
almost  at  the  spot  at  which  the  convoy  was  due. 

You  could  hear  the  loud  snapping  of  the  wireless 
from  our  wireless-room.  It  was  like  the  cracking 
of  the  whip  in  the  muliteer's  song  in  Cavalleria 
Rusticana.    But  it  was  echoless :  we  got  no  reply. 

Ten  minutes  passed.     ... 


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ADVENTURE   BY   WIRELESS         89 

Fifteen.     .     .     . 

Twenty : 

We  sat  there,  prepared  for  the  convoy's  S.  O.  S. 
that  would  mean  a  hideous  disaster. 

Twenty-five  minutes : 

Would  even  so  much  as  the  S.  O.  S.  reach  us? 
If  we  could  not  get  the  convoy,  could  it  get  us? 
Could  it  get  word  to  the  destroyers?  We  came  to 
the  point  where,  accepting  catastrophe  as  inevitable, 
we  hoped  only  that  the  destroyers  might  be  called 
forward  in  time  to  rush  up  and  save  from  the  water 
a  few  of  those  thousands  of  soldiers'  lives. 

Then  came  another  report  of  the  submarine:  it 
was  a  little  to  the  northward. 

Still  another :   It  was  miles  to  the  north. 

It  was  a  submarine  homeward-bound.  The  con- 
voy was  safe! 

Much  of  the  work  of  Base-headquarters  may  have 
seemed  to  you,  as  I  have  written  it,  dull  matter, 
mere  stupid  routine,  although,  in  reality,  it  is  the 
grinding  mill  in  which,  if  one  of  the  hundreds 
of  cogs  slips,  a  ship  may  go  down,  and  your 
boys  with  it — or  supplies  or  ammunition  that 
was  destined  otherwise  to  save  your  boys  from 
disaster.  But  to  be  there  in  those  offices,  and 
especially  to  stand  in  the  chart-room  as  the  mes- 
sages slip  in  through  the  air  for  registration  and 
action,  is  as  if  you  were  standing  beside  the  desk 
of  a  news-editor  in  a  newspaper-office  at  Los  An- 
geles during  the  big  San  Francisco  fire. 


90  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

Often  records  of  the  progress  of  a  dozen  ships 
are  being  received  at  the  same  time.  On  a  May 
morning,  from  five  or  six  such  records,  I  disen- 
tangled this  one.    Again  I  change  only  the  names : 

"10:28  A.  M. — Message  from  the  French  mer- 
chant-ship Vlctoire:  'S.  O.  S.  473,  iSO.  Being  tor- 
pedoed thirty  miles  west  of .'  "     (It  was  a  point 

just  outside  of  our  zone,  and,  just  at  first,  one  which 
we  had  no  destroyers  free  to  send  to.) 

"10 :30  A.  M. — Same  message  regarding  same  ship, 
transmitted  by  other  ships  that  had  picked  it  out  of 
the  sky. 

"10:47  A.  M. — From  the  Victoire:  'Torpedo 
missed,  but  submarine  has  risen  and  is  shelling  us. 
A  shot  just  missed  us  by  thirty  metres.' 

"10:52  A.  M.— From  Victoire:  'No.  1 S.  O. 

S. ;  SS.  SS.    Being  gunned.     Latitude  , 

longitude .    Speed,  ten  knots.' 

"11:15  A.  M. — U.  S.  S.  Perry,  to  the  Victoire: 
'Keep  on  that  course.    Am  heading  for  you.' 

"11 :55  A.  M.— From  Victoire:  'N. S.  O.  S. 

SS.  SS.    Being  gunned.     New  position, 

degrees, minutes,  N. ; degrees, min- 
utes, W.' 

"12:45  p.  M. — U.  S.  S.  Perry  to  Base-headquar- 
ters :  'Have  rescued  Victoire.' " 

What  has  our  fleet  done  to  change  the  submarine 
situation  in  our  zone  along  the  west  coast  of  France? 
Those  monthly  charts  and  their  decreasing  fly- 
specks  tell  the  story.    Here  it  is  in  plain  figures : 


ADVENTURE   BY   WIRELESS         91 

Number  of  vessels 
Month.  sunk  hv  submarines. 

October,  1917 .'....   24 

November 13 

December   4 

Jamiary,  1918 9 

February 1 

March 0 

Since  the  March  of  the  present  year,  there  have, 
of  course,  been  some  submarine  successes,  but  the 
general  toll  exacted  by  the  underseas  boats  has  been 
kept  at  a  minimum. 

Largely,  that  is  the  result  of  our  destroyers'  work, 
assisted  by  the  observations  made  by  hydroaero- 
planes and  observation-balloons,  and  of  the  direction 
of  such  work  from  the  Admiral's  office.  It  is  a 
pretty  good  record,  thank  you,  as  it  stands.  There 
is  excellent  reason  to  believe  that  it  will  soon  be 
even  better. 

Said  one  of  the  men  that  ought  to  know : 

"Of  course,  I  want  the  war  to  end  soon — if  it 
can  end  soon  conclusively  in  our  favor — but,  from  a 
purely  scientific  point  of  view,  I  could  find  it  in  my 
heart  to  wish  for  a  year's  continuance.  Why?  Be- 
cause I  believe  that,  if  we  manage  things  properly, 
we  can,  in  twelve  months,  wipe  the  submarine  from 
the  ocean,  can  make  it  a  useless  and  out-of-date  war- 
weapon — as  much  out-of-date  as  the  once  famous 
'Wooden  Walls'  of  England — by  the  autumn  of 
1919." 


92  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

For  my  part,  when  he  said  that,  I  could  have 
found  it  in  my  heart  to  wish  his  desire  already  ac- 
complished. For  I  was  going  to  sea  in  a  destroyer 
on  the  evening  of  the  day  on  which  he  spoke ! 


Did  you  ever  go  a-sail  astride  a  rabid,  ructions  ram? 
O,  lamb! 
(Rattle  him  dozvn! — Rattle  his  bones! 
Rattle  him  don'ii,  I  say!) 
Where  you  gave  up  all  your  supper,  yet  you  never  gave 
a  damn? 
(Rattle  Jiim  doimi! — Rattle  his  bones! 
Rattle  him  dozun,  I  say!) 
Well,  that's  the  life  I'm  livin',  that's  the  kind  o'  guy 

I  am: 
I'm  a  seahorse-bareback  rider  for  your  three-ring  Un- 
cle Sam. 
(Battle  him  dozvn! — Battle  him  dozvn! 
Wrastle  his  last  month's  pay!) 

Take  his  coin,  an'  mine — an'  then, 

Good  night  for  him  an'  me; 
For  zjoe're  both  destroyer-men 

Puttin'  out  to  sea. 

We're  the   Turbine  Kids  with  zvatertight  compart- 
ments  2q! 

(Oh,  find- 
Rattle  us  dozvn! — Battle  our  bones! 
Trundle  us  anyzvheres!) 
We  carry  fuel  to  cart  us  from  N'York  to  Palestine; 
(Rattle  us  dozvn — Battle  our  bones! 
Trundle  us  anyzvheres!) 
We've  got  a  cruising -radius  that  covers  all  the  brine: 
If  you  think  o'  takin'  service,  zvhy  it's  us  you'd  better 
jine ! 
(Battle  us  dozvn! — Rattle  us  dozvn! 
Who  in  the  thunder  cares?) 

Here's  the  rest  o'  zvhat  zve  had; 

Take  all  our  ready  tin; 
We're  goin'  with  the  tin- pans,  lad, 

Bringin'  doughboys  in! 

— Tin-Pan  Thomas, 


PART  THREE 

Scotching  the  Submarine 

CHAPTER  VII 

IN  THE  NAME  OF  THE  LORD  I  WILL  DESTROY  THEM 

A  THICK  volume  of  typewritten  manuscript  lay 
^  on  the  desk  in  the  Captain's  cabin. 

The  pile  of  manuscript  was  entitled  "Doctrine." 
The  passage  I  read  contained  the  principles  that 
were  to  direct  the  voyage  on  which  we  were  about  to 
embark. 

"This  boat,"  said  the  Captain,  "is  in  command. 
With  a  number  of  other  destroyers,  we  are  to  take 
a  homeward  bound  group  of  supply-ships  through 
the  Danger  Zone.  Out  there,  when  we've  said  good- 
by  to  our  'empties'  and  sent  our  regards  to  Broad- 
way, I'll  open  a  sealed  envelope  given  me  this  after- 
noon at  the  Admiral's  office.  In  it  I'll  find  orders  to 
proceed  with  my  destroyers  to  some  point  or  other 
out  at  sea  where,  at  a  given  time,  we  will  meet  an 
incoming  convoy  of  troopships.  These  we  must 
bring  safe  to  France." 

He  was  a  tall,  lean  man,  this  Captain  Fremont  of 

94 


I  WILL  DESTROY   THEM  95 

the  W ,  with  a  thin   face,   good-natured  but 

firm,  and  the  most  alert  eyes  that  I  have  ever  seen. 
Like  all  the  commanders  of  destroyers  I  have  met, 
he  had  the  quick  gestures  and  impatience  at  delays 
of  any  sort,  which  correspond  with  the  mechanism 
of  the  destroyer  itself.  There  were  little  lines  about 
his  mouth,  the  lines  drawn  by  a  responsibility  real- 
ized and  met,  but  never  allowed  to  crush,  and, 
though  he  was  still  in  his  late  thirties,  his  dark  hair, 
as  with  that  of  most  men  who  live  afloat,  was 
touched  with  silver  as  if  sprinkled  by  spray.  He 
had  commanded  one  of  that  fleet  of  destroyers 
which  were  America's  first  offering  to  the  world  war 
— to  the  English  inquiry,  on  their  arrival,  as  to  when 
they  would  be  ready  to  fight,  they  answered : 

"WE  ARE  READY  NOW." 

I  was  to  have  the  Captain's  cabin  for  my  own — the 
Navy  does  nothing  by  halves — and  the  Captain  was 
donning  his  working  clothes  and  throwing  duplicates 
to  me. 

Most  of  us  have  imagined  the  commander  of  a 
United  States  fighting-boat  as  going  upon  active 
service  erect  in  the  tight-fitting  uniform  with  its 
pocketless  jacket  and  high  collar  that  looks  so  well 
on  dress  occasions,  but  that  the  ofiicers  of  six  or 
more  years'  standing  are  now  hoping  to  decide  by 
ballot  to  exchange  for  a  more  comfortable  style  for 
sea- wear.  We  have  mental  pictures  of  Farragut 
lashed  to  his  mast  as  if  he  were  going  on  parade. 


96  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

Nothing  could  be  more  unlike  the  officers  of  a  de- 
stroyer setting  out  to  sea.  The  Captain,  and  every- 
body under  him,  wears  hip  boots ;  two,  or  even  three, 
sweaters;  a  fur-lined  reefer,  and  a  life-preserver. 
There  is  not  much  left  of  the  curves  of  the  human 
form  divine,  but  the  result  looks  uncommonly  like 
business. 

"Got  some  woolen  underclothing?"  asked  the  Cap- 
tain. "It's  always  best  to  be  wearing  flannels  if  you 
go  over." 

To  "go  over,"  I  gathered,  meant  to  be  flung  into 
the  sea.    I  said  I  scarcely  expected  the  experience. 

"Oh,  we  never  know  at  this  job,"  said  the  Captain, 
"and  so  we  always  go  prepared." 

As  you  prepared,  I  found,  so  you  remain.  When 
you  sleep,  it  is  in  your  clothes,  no  matter  how  long 
you  are  at  sea.  The  officers  have  other  things  to  do 
than  shave ;  the  tiny  shower-bath,  forward  under  the 
bridge,  is  used  only  when  you  have  returned  to  har- 
bour. 

"Friend    of    mine,    commanding    the    destroyer 

N ,"  said  my  Captain,  "tried  a  shower  on  the  last 

trip  out.  A  periscope  was  sighted,  and  he  had  to  go 
on  the  bridge  in  his  suds.  Uncomfortable.  Cold, 
too." 

He  left  me.  I  heard  shouted  orders  and  the  ring- 
ing of  many  bells.  Immediately,  the  destroyers  first 
herding  their  big  charges  into  the  open,  and  then 
preceding,  following  and  flanking  them,  we  got  un- 
der way. 


I   WILL  DESTROY  THEM  97 

If  I  were  to  attempt  a  technical  description  of  our 
boat,  I  should  begin  by  saying  that  it  was  oil-burning 
and  then  proceed  with  some  such  table  as  this : 

Length  over  all,  315  feet,  3  inches; 
Beam,  29  feet,  8  inches ; 
Draft,  9.4; 

Displacement,  1095  tons; 
Watertight  compartments,  29; 
Fuel-oil,  ditto,  10; 
Fuel-oil  capacity,  92,687  gallons; 
Tubular  boilers,  4; 
Masts,  70  feet ; 
Horse  power,  17,000; 
Maximum  speed,  32  knots; 
Four-inch  rapid-fire  guns,  4; 
Twenty-one-inch  twin  torpedo-tubes,  4; 
Men,  120; 
Officers,  15; 

Four  Parson's  marine  steam  turbines, 
with  reduction-gear  propeller-shafts. 

Incorrectly  stated  though  it  probably  is,  all  that 
might  mean  much  to  a  technician.  To  me  it  means 
little.    Here  is  what  I  know  and  what  I  saw : 

The  boat  is  oil-burning  and  has  a  tremendous 
cruising-radius.  She  can  go  the  whole  way  from 
Brest  to  New  York  and  back  at  twelve  knots  an  hour 
without  taking  on  a  fresh  supply  of  fuel.  In  these 
particulars  she  is  like  all  of  her  type,  of  which 
there  are  too  few.  Upon  necessity  I  have  known 
her  to  rush  through  the  water  as  an  express-train 
rushes  over  its  rails.  Smokeless,  save  when  smoke 
is  wanted,  she  can  instantly  hide  herself  in  a  greasy 


98  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

cloud  as  completely  as  a  cuttlefish  concealing  its 
whereabouts  in  its  own  secretions.  She  turns  on  her 
toes,  answering  her  helm  as  a  horse  answers  the 
response  of  a  spurred  huntsman. 

Before  I  came  to  realize  her  capabilities,  the  de- 
stroyer on  which  I  found  myself  looked,  to  my 
landsman's  eyes,  a  grotesquely  unwieldly  creature. 
As  we  came  aboard,  her  camouflage  made  her  seem 
a  sea-clown.  She  carries  boats  for  about  one-tenth 
of  her  complement.  Her  iron  main-deck,  at  the 
stern  of  which  was  the  high-piled  slide  of  the  depth- 
charges,  is,  mostly,  unrailed ;  it  is  not  five  feet  above 
the  waterline;  it  is  not  more  than  thirty  feet  wide 
at  its  widest,  and,  at  sea,  it  is  generally  and  peril- 
ously awash.  Forward,  with  an  effect  of  topheavi- 
ness,  is  a  four-story  building:  the  wardroom  and 
officers'  quarters,  surmounted  by  the  glassed-in- 
charthouse,  topped  by  the  bridge  and  capped  by  the 
foretop  and  flashlight  station.  Below,  she  is  as  full 
of  machinery  as  a  watch — a  miracle  of  compactness. 
If  you  imagine  a  watchcase  loaded  with  its  works 
and  then  every  cranny  filled  with  high  explosives, 
you  get  this  boat's  relative  proportions  of  gear  and 
death.  Her  duty  takes  her,  in  the  unlighted  night, 
dashing  among  her  mighty  and  cumbersome 
charges;  yet,  with  plates  that  are  of  mere  pasteboard 
thickness,  she  carries  what  the  lightest  collision 
might  fire  to  instant  life,  blasting  her  to  such  bits 
that  no  trace  of  her  would  remain. 

The  dangers  that  hourly  encompass  our  destroy- 


I   WILL  DESTROY   THEM  99 

ers  operating  these  waters  are  fourfold.  They  are 
submarines,  mines,  collisions  and  the  perils  of  a 
treacherous  coast. 

The  submarines  ?  Well,  in  British  waters  there  is 
a  group  of  American  destroyers  known  as  the 
"Hunting  Fleet,"  which  is  sent  out  to  areas  where 
hostile  underseas  craft  are  reported  to  be  operating 
and  is  told  to  attack  subs.  The  duties  of  convoying 
destroyers  in  regard  to  submarines  are  made  evident 
in  that  passage  from  the  "Doctrine"  to  which  I  have 
referred;  they  must,  first  of  all,  protect  the  convoy, 
but,  precisely  to  do  this,  they  must  ram  or  gun  such 
an  enemy  as  appears  on  the  surface  and  drop  depth- 
charges  over  such  as  submerge — drop  and  get  away 
with  all  possible  speed  lest  they  be  blown  to  bits 
themselves  in  the  process.  The  destroyer  is  a  bad 
mark  for  a  submarine's  torpedo,  but,  once  in  a 
while,  that  mark  is  hit,  and  then  the  destroyer's  ex- 
plosives themselves  do  the  rest:  there  follows — 
simply  a  disappearance.  The  Jacob  Jones  was  a  case 
decidedly  in  point.  After  eighteen  hours  in  the  win- 
ter water,  some  of  its  crew  were  found  keeping 
themselves  alive,  and  comparatively  warm,  by  turn- 
ing over  an  elliptical  raft  and,  themselves  in  the 
water,  singing,  Where  Do  We  Go  From  Here? 

The  whole  ship  had  disappeared  within  four  min- 
utes ;  but,  during  that  time,  one  lad  on  deck,  instead 
of  trying  to  save  himself,  had  struggled  with  the 
fastenings  of  a  motor-boat,  which  would,  if 
launched,  be  of  inestimable  rescue- value,  and,  to 


100  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

hasten  his  task,  was  standing  in  the  boat  itself.  An 
officer,  just  as  the  four  minutes  drew  to  a  fatal  close, 
was  pulling  himself  out  of  the  water  to  a  bit  of 
wreckage.  When  the  depth-charges  began  to  take 
final  effect,  the  officer  saw  the  seaman  in  the  motor- 
boat  throw  up  his  hands — saw  the  two  sides  of  the 
motor-boat  bend  upwards  and  imprison  him  and 
then  sink. 

As,  with  blackened  lips  and  chattering  teeth,  the 
survivors  were  lined  up  ashore,  the  officer  who  had 
seen  that  sailor's  gallantry  reported  the  act  as  one  of 
extreme  bravery,  for  which,  though  dead,  the  boy 
who  had  gone  down  in  the  motor-boat  should  have 
his  name  cited.  When  the  roll  was  called,  the  "dead" 
boy  answered,  "Here  1" 

He  was  asked  how  it  happened  that  he  was  alive. 

"I  felt  myself  going  down  and  down,"  he  said, 
"and  I  kept  holding  my  breath.  When  I  knew  I 
couldn't  hold  my  breath  an  instant  longer,  I  made  up 
my  mind  that  I  would  hold  it  an  instant  longer,  and 
then,  somehow,  I  seemed  to  be  shot  up  to  the  sur- 
face." 

Perhaps  an  explosion  in  the  submerging  destroyer 
tossed  the  lad  back  to  life.  At  that,  it  was  his  will- 
power that  saved  him.  In  the  little  boats  on  an  open 
ocean,  the  men  themselves  say  that  survival  often 
depends  upon  one's  will. 

"Why,  one  man,"  I  was  told  of  another  occasion, 
"was  one  of  the  finest  specimens  of  manhood  I  ever 
saw.    Physically  he  hadn't  a  flaw.    But,  hours  be- 


w 


c 
Q 


I   WILL  DESTROY   THEM  101 

fore  we  sighted  land,  he  gave  up  and  collapsed  in 
the  bottom  of  the  boat.  We  had  to  threaten  to  shoot 
him  to  make  him  take  an  oar.  And  yet  some  men 
that,  to  look  at,  you'd  think  would  just  naturally 
give  up,  decide  they'll  pull  through — and  they  do; 
that's  all." 

The  presence  of  mines  is  wirelessed,  when  dis- 
covered, both  directly  to  such  ships  as  are  within 
call  and  to  the  base,  whence  the  news  is  again  dis- 
tributed. But  discovery  depends  upon  at  least  one 
explosion.  That  may  happen  safely  in  the  drag 
wires  of  a  sweeper  patrolling  a  suspected  area,  or  it 
may  happen,  less  safely,  to  a  merchant  ship — or  a 
destroyer.  Then  there  is  no  destroyer  left  to  do 
any  reporting. 

Collisions  present  a  danger  that  I  have  already  in- 
dicated.   My  Captain  put  it  succinctly  : 

"Ships  that  pass  in  the  afternoon,"  said  he,  "are 
more  comfortable  than  ships  that  pass  in  the  night." 

As  for  the  coast  in  our  French  zone  of  operations, 
it  is  mostly  the  coast  of  the  notorious  Bay  of  Biscay. 
The  sea  romances  of  your  boyhood  —  of  Marryat, 
of  W.  H,  G.  Kingston  and  Clark  Russell — were  full 
of  it.  Its  storms  are  famous — and  infamous;  its 
tides  tremendous;  lancelike  rocks  spring  out  of 
deep  water,  and  about  them  swirl  currents  that  run 
at  from  two  to  seven  sea-miles  an  hour.  Our  de- 
stroyers take,  on  every  cruise,  a  pilot  licensed  by  the 
French  Navy;  he  is  generally  a  Breton-born,  of  the 
best  race  of  sailors  in  the  world;  his  government  has 


102  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

demanded  ten  years  of  schooling  for  him  before 
conferring  its  Hcense  or  diploma,  and  ten  years  of 
schooling  in  France  is  harder  than  ten  years  in 
America ;  he  has  this  coast  by  heart ;  he  is  friends 
with  each  tree  along  the  shore;  he  knows  when  a 
seaside  cottage  is  repainted  and,  at  the  first  glimpse 
of  a  rock  stabbing  out  of  a  twenty-four-hour  fog, 
will  call  that  rock  by  a  pet  name.  Yet  even  the  best 
of  pilots,  working  under  the  most  capable  of  cap- 
tains, can  not  always  save  a  ship  against  the  contrary 
strength  of  a  Biscay  storm,  and  the  descending  wa- 
ter brings,  at  such  times,  a  peculiar  danger  to  de- 
stroyers. 

I  recall  one  case  In  point.  The  seas  were  rushing 
over  the  main  deck.  They  beat  on  the  lashed  depth- 
charges.  Each  charge  held  enough  explosive  to 
wipe  the  boat  from  the  ocean's  top — and  one  of  them 
broke  loose. 

Instantly  a  sailor  had  vaulted  upon  it.  Its  loos- 
ened cording  in  his  hands,  he  sat  astride  of  that 
rolling  keg  of  death  as  a  cow-boy  keeps  his  seat  on 
a  kicking  broncho. 

"Hey !"  he  yelled  to  his  comrades.  "Stand  by  and 
lend  a  hand !  It  won't  do  for  this  colt  to  get  away 
from  me !" 

Now,  it  was  my  assignment  to  see  the  destroyers 
that  live  this  sort  of  life,  take  out  through  the  Dan- 
ger Zone  "empties"  that  the  tonnage-lust  of  the  Ger- 
mans hungers  to  sink,  and  meet  at  some  nameless 


I  WILL  DESTROY   THEM  103 

dot  upon  the  ocean,  and  bring  in,  a  convoy  of  trans- 
ports laden  with  your  sons  and  brothers.  There  is 
no  use  pretending  that  I  looked  forward  to  my  job 
without  apprehension. 


A  hundred  men  in  a  watchcase  ship, 

We  fellows  put  to  sea. 
With  a  place  to  sleep  (if  your  foot  don't  slip!) 

And  a  cargo  of  T.  N.  T. 
(A  place  to  sleep — when  there's  time  to  sleep!) 
And  we  eat  when  we  get  the  chance — 
On  a  boat  that  goes 
On  its  toes 
And  nose 
In  a  dangerous  dervish-dance: 
Dodging  the  subs  and  the  convoy's  blows. 
We're  bringing  your  boys  to  France! 

Our  port  is  a  point  on  the  ocean's  top, 

A  decimal  far  afloat; 
We  sail  to  a  specified  salty  drop 

To  meet  a  beam,  of  a  boat — 
A  beam  of  a  boat  and  a  couple  more 

And  four  or  five  besides. 
Each  loaded  down  zvith  an  army-corps, 
A-bucking  the  untamed  tides; 

Jammed  and  crammed  in  a  sardine-tin, 
Periscope-crazy  and  sick  as  sin, 
Here  are  the  doughboys  coming  in — 
Our  job's  to  bring  'em  in! 

They're  half  of  them  dotty  and  all  of  'em  scared, 
And,  oh,  but  they  cheer  as  ive. 

In  our  cockleshells 

Atop  the  swells. 
Bob  out  of  a  snarling  sea: 

There's  naught  too  good 

For  our  brotherhood 


When  the  Danger  Zone's  to  span; 

But  once  ashore. 

It's  "One  knock  more. 
For  he's  only  a  sailorman!" 

(0, 
Gus!) 
"The  soldier  starts  his  brave  career; 
He  never  knozvs  a  touch  of  fear" — 
But  who  in  the  hell  was  it  brought  him  here? 

US  ! 

— Bringing  'Em  In. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


ON  BOARD  A  DESTROYER 


WHEN  all  the  story  of  this  war  is  told,  it  will 
be  seen  that,  of  our  Navy's  part,  the  great 
work  was  the  work  done  by  the  destroyers.  The 
Mosquito  Fleet  is  more  picturesque,  and  no  less 
brave;  no  less  brave  and  absolutely  necessary  are 
the  men  of  the  transport  service,  the  mine-sweepers, 
the  hydroaeroplanes  and  the  observation-balloons. 
But  it  is  to  facilitate  the  task  of  the  destroyers  that 
nearly  all  these  operate.  In  the  body  of  our  Navy, 
as  constituted  for  the  purposes  of  the  world-conflict 
up  to  the  present  time,  the  destroyers  are  the  back- 
bone. Only  a  Melville  or  a  Dana  could  do  them  jus- 
tice, and  if  I  have  written  more  of  other  branches  of 
the  service,  it  is  because  I  am  sadly  conscious  of  be- 
ing neither  a  Dana  nor  a  Melville. 

"Always  proceed  with  a  scientific  irregularity  and 
remember  that  the  enemy  sees  everything  that  you 
do." 

On  this  principle  the  destroyers  work  in  their  care 
of  each  convoy.  Roughly  speaking,  of  course,  there 
are  certain  other  facts  to  be  remembered.  For  in- 
stance : 

1.  The  speed  of  the  convoy  must  be  ordered  in — 
such  and  such  a  way. 

106 


ON    BOARD    A    DESTROYER        107, 

2.  It  is  well  to  have  the  commanding  destroyer  do 
— so  and  so;  the  other  destroyers  doing — this  and 
that. 

3.  A  submarine's  best  position  for  attack  is — etc., 
etc. ;  therefore,  and  so  forth. 

The  guardians  know  that  unseen  enemy  eyes  are 
ever  upon  them,  and  that  too  closely  to  follow  any 
hard  and  fast  rules  is  to  invite  attack.  So  maneu- 
vers are  unremitting. 

They  are  ordered  by  every  sort  of  signal,  and  each 
order  must  be  executed  instantly  if  collision  is  to  be 
avoided.  There  is  the  radio  for  dark  as  well  as  dis- 
tance; the  flash-lamp  for  twilight;  the  two-arm  or 
two-flag  semaphore  for  close  quarters  by  day  and 
the  unbroken  procession  of  parti-colored  bits  of 
bunting,  each  bit  a  letter  or  a  phrase,  which  bobs  to 
the  foretop — "Rot!  Quack!"  our  Captain  called 
them  off  by  the  queer  names  assigned  to  each,  every 
name  beginning  with  the  letter  required  and  all  de- 
vised so  that  the  man  who  pulls  the  halliard  will  not 
confuse  letters  of  a  similar  sound. 

There  is  the  smoke  signal,  too.  A  quick  manipu- 
lation of  the  blower  in  the  engine-room,  and  a  boat  is 
hidden — and  stifled.  Its  mention  leads  one  to  the 
impenetrable  smoke-screen,  now  in  use  in  every  navy 
of  the  world, 

*T  was  the  innocent  originator  of  that  form  of 
defense,"  said  our  Captain.  'T  was  commanding  one 
of  a  bunch  of  oil-burning  destroyers  off  Long  Island. 
We  were  in  a  war-game  and  waiting  to  'attack' 


108  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

some  dreadnoughts.  Something  happened  to  one 
of  my  blowers,  and  we  were  nearly  strangled  and  al- 
together hidden  from  our  flagship.  She  signalled 
me  a  severe  call-down,  but  when  the  dreadnoughts 
appeared,  we  were  all  ordered  to  repeat  by  design 
what  I  had  done  by  accident.  It  won  us  that  action 
in  the  war-game  and  passed  into  doctrine." 

You  no  sooner  set  foot  on  one  of  our  destroyers 
than  you  realize  that,  save  for  them,  there  could  be 
no  security  for  any  of  our  soldiers  sent  to  France, 
and  your  particular  destroyer  has  no  sooner  cleared 
the  harbour  than  you  begin  to  wonder  whether  the 
chief  part  of  the  crew's  education  isn't  devoted  to 
the  art  of  walking  on  the  hands  with  the  feet  in  air. 
That  kindly  destiny  which  created  me  immune  from 
seasickness  did  not  prevent  my  knowing  that  I  was 
sailing  in  a  topsy-turvy  craft,  and  I  never  knew  a 
type  so  consistently  uncomfortable  as  this  one. 

Do  you  think  waves  look  high  from  the  rail  of 
your  transport.  Private  Doughboy?  Wait  till  you 
are  rolled  across  the  main  deck  of  a  destroyer  and 
vainly  try  to  look  over  hissing  crests  that  arch  the 
foretop,  cover  the  zenith  and  break  upon  the  very 
center  of  the  vessel.  Now  you  will  be  frantically 
clinging  to  a  rope,  while  your  slender  boat,  breathing 
like  an  Alpine  climber,  stands  on  its  propellers  and 
staggers  up  a  blank  wall  of  angry  blue ;  comes  a  mo- 
ment when  the  destroyer  is  dizzily  balanced  on  an 
inch  of  water  with  yawning  precipices  before  and 
behind ;  follows,  down  the  former  of  these,  a  tobog- 


ON    BOARD    A   DESTROYER        109 

gan-plunge,  which  you  are  sure  will  drive  your  nose 
into  the  bottom  of  the  sea.  The  waves  that  she 
doesn't  go  over,  she  goes  through ;  those  which  don't 
break  above  her  pound  the  hull  with  blov/s  that  rat- 
tle her  plates  and  set  the  soles  of  your  feet  atingle. 
She  rolls  so  much  that  her  main  deck,  designed  to 
be  only  a  few  feet  above  still  water,  is  under  the 
surface;  she  has  a  pitch  of  incredible  degrees,  and 
there  are  times  when,  infuriated  by  the  onrush  of  a 
particularly  high  swell,  she  will  stand  on  her  nose 
and  hit  it  with  her  tail. 

"Do  you  have  any  cases  of  seasickness?"  I  asked. 

*'Oh,  yes,"  said  the  Captain.  "Some  men  are  sea- 
sick every  time  they  come  out  in  a  destroyer.  If 
they  merely  have  an  acute  case  on  each  trip,  they 
just  have  to  grin  and  bear  it  and  go  about  their  work, 
but  when  it  comes  to  chronic  hemorrhages,  as  it  does 
in  many  cases,  the  fellow's  no  use  to  us,  and  we  have 
to  get  him  assigned  to  land-duty  or  put  on  one  of 
the  big  battle-ships." 

Eating  is  a  mere  matter  of  skill.  I  can  easily 
imagine  a  destroyer  rolling  and  pitching  so  swiftly 
that  one  movement  will  neutralize  another  and  the 
food  remain  stationary  on  its  table.  In  our  case, 
space  was  so  limited  that  there  were  bunks  along 
either  end  of  the  wardroom — bunks  railed  so  that 
the  sleepers  would  not  be  tossed  out.  We  sat  on 
these  and,  our  knees  elevated  by  the  rail,  could  just 
protect  our  plates  in  the  hollow  of  our  laps.  One 
day  a  junior  ofificer,  whose  physician  was  dieting 


110  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

him,  hesitated  about  a  plate  that  a  reeling  steward 
offered.  Were  peas  carbohydrates?  Before  a  deci- 
sion could  be  reached,  peas  and  steward  were 
through  the  open  door  and  rolling  toward  the  depth- 
charges  astern. 

The  crew's  quarters  on  a  destroyer  are  not  pro- 
portionately more  confined  than  the  officers',  but  they 
are  not  roomier,  either ;  yet,  though  there  is  no  cod- 
dling in  our  Navy,  a  pupil  in  a  young  ladies'  semi- 
nary is  not  better  looked  after  than  a  bluejacket. 
His  clothing  is  ordered  each  morning  in  accord  with 
the  prevailing  weather  conditions;  if  he  is  on  duty 
at  meal  time,  his  food  is  kept  warm  for  him  in  the 
galley.  I  remember  one  seaman's  answer  to  a  ques- 
tion as  to  what  he  had  for  supper. 

"Beans  an'  jam,"  he  said.  "I  thought  they  might 
'a'  given  us  potatoes.  Somehow  jam  don't  go  well 
with  just  beans." 

I  repeated  this  to  the  Captain.  I  thought  it  mildly 
amusing. 

Not  so  .the  Captain.  He  had  the  cook  up  instantly, 
for  an  accounting.  It  appeared  that  my  sailor  had 
forgotten  to  mention  bread,  sardines  and  one  or  two 
other  items  of  the  menu.  Beans  had  not  been,  in 
his  mind,  a  substitute  for  potatoes :  he  could  remem- 
ber nothing  but  the  lack  of  the  thing  he  most 
wanted. 

It  is  only  after  supper  that  the  commander  of  a 
destroyer  in  charge  of  a  convoy  gets  a  few  moments 
of  leisure.     Then  the  radio-room,  which  is  forever 


ON    BOARD    A    DESTROYER        111 

sending  him  messages  received,  sends  him  the  inter- 
cepted communiques,  including  the  German,  and  he 
may  read  the  Navy  Department's  reports  on  sewage- 
disposal  in  the  York  River,  which,  since  he  is  still 
officially  attached  to  a  fleet  a  part  whereof  is  sta- 
tioned in  America,  punctiliously  come  to  him.  Later 
he  must  climb  to  the  charthouse,  under  the  bridge. 
When  he  isn't  on  the  bridge  itself,  he  is  in  the  chart- 
house,  all  night  long.  Such  sleep  as  he  can  snatch 
he  snatches  there,  and  every  little  while  a  sailor 
comes  to  bale  out  the  inches-deep  water  that  a  ran- 
dom wave  has  flung  forward  through  the  always 
open  door. 

My  first  night  with  the  outgoing  convoy  proved 
typical.  Orders  to  the  ships  that  we  were  guiding 
snapped  hither  and  yon.  On  a  big  table,  a  younger 
officer  plotted  out  our  course,  set  down  the  bits  of 
news  now  and  again  wirelessed  from  the  Base,  and 
calculated  to  a  nicety  just  how  certain  we  were  to 
collide  with  some  northbound  or  southbound  convoy 
before  morning.  About  once  every  thirty  minutes, 
one  of  our  big,  blundering  wards  would  all  but  run 
us  down,  and  we  would  have  to  spin  about  and  get 
away  with  a  suddenness  that  took  our  legs  from  un- 
der us. 

"Schooner  reports  she's  been  torpedoed  at  such 
and  such  latitude,  such  an^d  such  longitude." 

The  Captain  would  study  the  bit  of  paper  handed 
him : 

"That  looks  like  Hans  Rose's  work." 


112  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

He  could  tell  a  real  torpedo  from  a  false  alarm, 
even  on  paper. 

"Every  transport  that  comes  in,"  he  said,  "has 
seen  subs.  To  hear  those  tales,  you'd  think  subma- 
rines were  as  thick  out  here  as  rails  on  a  fence.  I've 
had  them  give  me  stories  about  seeing  four  and  sink- 
ing two  when  there  wasn't  one  within  one  hundred 
miles.  A  submarine  submerging  makes  a  mark  in 
the  water  like  a  bass  snapping  at  a  fly ;  a  torpedo  has 
a  wake  that  the  porpoise  loves  to  imitate.  At  this 
time  of  year  these  waters  become  very  phosphor- 
escent, and  then  things  look  queer." 

They  certainly  must.  I  copied  the  formal  report 
of  one  of  the  "submarine-sightings"  as  made  by  a 
transport-master  just  ashore  from  his  first  transport- 
voyage.  It  ran — I  change  only  the  ships'  names — 
thus: 

"The  Athena,  with  guns  loaded  forward  and  aft, 
was  proceeding  in  convoy  to  France  with  numerous 
other  craft.  The  gun-crews  were  all  at  their  sta- 
tions and  the  lookout  carefully  kept ;  the  Captain  was 
on  the  bridge  and  had  scarcely  slept  for  several  days. 

On  — th  March,  about  4  p.  m.,  being hours 

from  the  coast  and  the  escort  expected  soon,  a  tor- 
pedo was  sighted  to  starboard,  one  hundred  and  fifty 
yards  away,  running  part  of  the  time  submerged, 
then  jumping  clear  of  the  sea,  like  a  large  fish  chas- 
ing its  prey.  We  blew  six  whistles  as  a  warning  to 
every  one  in  the  convoy,  then  fired  a  salvo  from  the 
forward  gun.     One  of  the  shots,  which  were  fired 


ON    BOARD    A    DESTROYER        113 

directly  into  the  rays  of  the  sun,  struck  fair  on  the 
bridge  of  our  convoy-mate,  the  Bernadettc,  who  had 
not  the  time  to  turn.  The  shell  did  not  explode,  but 
passed  over  the  ship,  close  beside  the  legs  of  the 
Captain,  mate  and  officer  of  the  deck,  who  were  all 
on  the  bridge  at  this  part  of  the  trip.  The  torpedo 
having  vanished,  and  it  appearing  from  the  action  of 
the  Bernadette's  captain  that  the  shot  had  angered 
him,  the  Captain  of  the  Athena  ordered  'Cease  Fir- 
ing!'" 

There  was  a  brief  memorandum  appended  to  this 
report.    It  ran  as  follows : 

"Other  commanders  declare  torpedo  a  fish.  Mate 
of  Bcniadctte  deposes  he  saw  neither  torpedo  nor 
shot,  but  was  near  when  something  fell." 

My  destroyer  Captain,  in  hurried  moments  be- 
tween duties,  had  a  good  deal  to  say  of  real  sub- 
marines. 

"There  are  two  that  have  been  working  about 
here  pretty  regularly,"  he  told  me.  "The  boys  call 
one  of  them  Armen  Archie  and  the  other  Penmarch 
Pete.  But  the  worst  damage  the  subs  have  done  is 
off  the  Irish  coast.  I  was  stationed  there  for  a  while. 
One  day  I  saw  a  Russian  square-rigger,  with  three 
tons  of  Australian  flour  go  down  five  miles  from 
shore.  In  such  cases,  we  have  to  stand  by  and  pick 
up  survivors;  we  give  each  rescued  man  a  slug  of 
whiskey  and  a  bath  in  bichloride:  the  whiskey  re- 
vives him,  and  the  bichloride — well,  our  boats  would 
swarm  if  we  didn't  use  that.    Once  in  a  while  we're 


114  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

almost  too  quick — I  saw  one  sub  submerge  before 
my  eyes  with  all  her  fake  sails  set." 

He  told  of  another.  Around  it  was  dumped  a 
barrage  of  depth-charges.  A  week  later,  damaged,  it 
hobbled  into  a  Spanish  port  and  was  interned  there. 

"There  are  three  official  grades  of  anti-subma- 
rine successes,"  he  said :  "absolute,  probable  and  pos- 
sible. To  prove  the  first,  you  must  bring  in  a  Ger- 
man; for  the  second  you  must  produce  at  least  a 
piece  of  rigging;  the  third  you  are  credited  with  if 
the  crew's  evidence  of  oil  and  wreckage  mounting 
to  the  surface  is  convincing.  The  Admiral  himself 
conducts  the  investigation  as  soon  as  you  make 
port." 

This  is  not  the  most  comfortable  sort  of  conver- 
sation to  precede  bed  when  you  are  on  a  destroyer 
with  a  convoy  in  the  Danger  Zone.  My  dreams  on 
the  first  night  out  were  troubled.  The  boat  made 
noises  such  as  used  to  be  made  when,  back  home,  the 
servants  carried  the  table-silver  up-stairs  and  bumped 
the  baskets  against  the  banisters  in  passing.  The  ship 
buckled  and  plunged  and  rolled ;  to  lie  on  the  high- 
springed  bunk  was  to  risk  a  broken  neck ;  that  must 
have  been  merely  for  show,  anyhow;  one  had  to 
seek  the  low  bench  and  hang  fast  to  that — and  the 
efifect  was  that  of  rather  rough  bob-sledding  down  a 
very  long  hill.  Besides,  the  codes  were  kept  in  the 
Captain's  cabin,  where  I  was  housed,  and  these  had 
every  little  while  to  be  consulted.  Out  of  the  walls 
where  tubes  led  to  the  bridge,  came  muffled  calls 


ON    BOARD   A   DESTROYER        115 

compared  with  which  President  Wilson's  "voices  in 
the  air"  are  happy.  It  was  somewhere  near  to  dawn 
when  I  decided  to  go  on  the  bridge. 

Did  you  ever  have  a  nightmare  in  which,  amid 
splashing  spray,  you  walked  a  pitching  slack-wire 
suspended  above  Niagara  Falls?  Climbing,  in 
darkness,  to  the  bridge  of  a  destroyer  is  like  that, 
and,  once  arrived,  you  are  still  in  a  shower-bath — the 
water  is  flung  up  there  every  time  the  boat  hits  a 
"big  one."  The  rail  is  buttressed  with  leather-cov- 
ered cushions,  but  even  those  do  not  protect  you 
against  all  bruising,  and,  what  with  lookouts,  wheel- 
men, signalmen  and  engine-room  directors,  there  is 
always  a  party  of  twelve  crowded  there. 

"Average  speed  twenty-five !"  bawled  the  Captain 
— no  speech  less  than  a  yell  is  audible  on  a  destroy- 
er's bridge  at  sea. 

Dimly  I  could  discern  a  man  pulling  a  lever.    .    .    . 

When  morning  broke,  there  were  only  our  fellow- 
destroyers  visible. 

"Where's  the  convoy  ?"  I  wondered. 

"Gone  on  its  way,"  I  was  told.  "Didn't  you  hear 
me  order  a  speed  of  twenty-five  an  hour  ago?  That 
was  when  we  said  good-by  to  them.  Now  we  are 
beating  it  down  to  another  point  to  make  contact 
with  the  incoming  fellows." 

For  a  long  time  nothing  happened.  I  was  begin- 
ning to  think  that  nothing  would  happen.  Hanging 
on  to  the  rail,  I  must  have  dozed  a  bit.  Then, 
though  he  spoke  merely  as  if  he  were  reporting  an 


116  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

expected  lighthouse,  I  heard  one  of  the  lookouts 
saying : 

"Periscope  two  points  off  the  port  bow,  sir." 

I  was  wide  awake  now. 

"Look  there,"  said  a  pointing  junior  officer,  "It's 
the  prettiest  submarine  wake  I've  ever  seen." 

The  lookout  had  scarcely  uttered  the  words  when 
the  siren  sounded.  It  was  "general  quarters."  As 
a  boxer  in  the  ring  whirls  about  after  rushing  and 
passing  his  opponent,  so  our  destroyer  whirled  about 
in  the  sea  and  changed  for  the  mark  in  the  water 
that,  however  clear  it  might  be  to  the  trained  eyes 
about  me,  was  invisible  to  mine. 

I  know  what  happened,  but  what  I  was  conscious 
of  observing  was  simply  an  ordered  dash  of  men  to 
a  score  of  preordained  stations.  There  were  bells. 
The  Captain  leaned  over  the  rail,  one  hand  upraised. 

"Now,"  he  called. 

Down  an  inclined  pair  of  rails  and  over  our  stern 
an  iron  carton  rolled.    It  splashed  into  the  sea. 

"Full  speed  ahead !" 

We  jumped  forward. 

Then  we  seemed  to  be  lifted  out  of  the  water  by 
a  blow  from  underneath,  whereupon  an  unseen  hand 
grasped  our  boat  in  the  air  and  shook  it.  Astern,  the 
ocean's  surface  rose  into  a  little  hill :  a  hill  at  first 
all  boiling  blackness  and  then  churning  white.  Close 
behind  us,  but  safe  enough  away,  for  all  that — so 
far  as  we  were  concerned — the  depth-charge  had  ex- 
ploded. 


ON    BOARD    A    DESTROYER        117. 

The  Captain  said  it  wasn't  a  submarine,  and  he 
ought  to  know.  He  was  rather  angry,  and  he  had, 
no  doubt,  a  right  to  be.  But  he  had  shown  me  what 
his  ship  could  do  and  that  he  knew  his  business. 

I  am  trying  to  write  this  story  in  the  order  in 
which  it  happened,  yet  I  know  that  to  the  general 
pubHc,  after  a  false  submarine  alarm,  the  only  thing 
not  an  anticlimax  would  be  a  real  submarine,  and  I 
have,  I  am  glad  to  say,  no  real  submarine  to  offer. 
If  events  had  only  occurred  otherwise,  we  might 
have  preceded  the  incident  of  the  depth-charge  by 
telling  how  we  searched  for  our  incoming  convoy; 
how  we  proceeded  with  the  destroyers  so  disposed 
as  to  have  a  vision  of  about  seventy  square  miles; 
how,  noting  a  pair  of  rain  squalls  advancing  on  us 
along  parallel  lines,  we  so  maneuvered  as  to  dodge, 
dry,  between  them;  how  we  sought  to  "make  con- 
tact" with  our  wards  by  smoke  and  radio,  and  how 
the  Captain  swore  when  those  wards  were  an  hour 
late. 

"All  those  fellows  are  way  behind — way  behind !" 
he  grumbled.  "Here  it  is  nine  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing and  we're  all  over  the  appointed  spot  and  they're 
nowhere.  I'll  bet  they've  done  something  phony — 
the  prime  vertical  slits  won't  lie.  I'll  give  them  ten 
minutes  more  and  not  another  second.  They  might 
be  shoreward  of  us,  so  I'll  have  to  race  back  if  they 
don't  show  up  soon. — Radio ! — get  that  radio-room ! 
< — Can't  you  pick  up  those  transports  ?" 

[The  foretop  interrupted  the  answer: 


118  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

"Smoke  a  point  and  a  half  forward  of  the  port 
beam !" 

We  changed  our  course  Immediately.  A  little 
later,  one  of  the  bridge  lookouts  corroborated  the 
foretop's  report.  It  was  the  transport's  smoke ;  and 
the  other  destroyers  began  to  smoke  in  reply.  The 
first  sight  had  been  made  from  a  distance  of  eigh- 
teen miles ;  the  sight  from  the  bridge  at  twelve. 

"Got  a  transport !"  called  the  radio-room  tube. 

"Never  mind  her  now,"  said  the  Captain.  "We've 
got  her  up  here.  Listen  for  a  contact  signal. — Get 
up  on  the  foretop,  quartermaster. — Standard  speed 
twenty  knots. — Contact  240,  distance  10. — Gear 
sixty. — What  jig  are  they  on?  Three?  And  ten 
miles  to  the  south'ard?  Why,  their  course — .  I'll 
bet  Jerre  Peters.  He  ought  to  change  twenty  de- 
grees in  the  next  two  minutes." 

There  had  been  along  the  horizon  a  faint  gray 
band.  Gradually  upon  it  I  saw  ships  take  shape  un- 
til they  looked  like  pictured  ships  on  a  wall-paper 
border. 

There  was  some  beautiful  boat-handling.  At  one 
moment  we  went  through  that  convoy — so  one  offi- 
cer put  it — "like  a  dose  of  salts" — great,  gray  lin- 
ers, the  decks  packed  with  cheering  doughboys, 
every  one  of  them  wearing  his  life-preserver. 

"There  are  twenty-five  hundred  aboard  this  one," 
said  our  Captain.  "On  that  thirty-five  hundred. 
The  big  fellow  has  eight  thousand.    You  there,  star- 


ON   BOARD   A   DESTROYER         119 

board  lookout,  look  for  subs;  don't  watch  the  con- 
voy !    Fox,  Quack,  Numeral !" 

The  signal-flags  were  dancing  up  the  halliards. 

So  we  took  them  Franceward.  Days  we  went 
and  nights.  It  is  no  easy  matter  to  avoid  collision, 
when  zigzagging  with  a  cluttering  convoy  by  sun- 
light ;  in  Stygian  darkness,  governing  movements  by 
fallible  clocks,  it  is  an  exhausting  performance.  Your 
nearest  destroyer  mistakes  you  for  an  enemy  and 
tries  to  run  you  down,  your  biggest  transport  is  a 
second  tardy  or  its  clock  runs  an  instant  slow,  and 
you  all  but  graze  as  you  dart  from  under  its  sud- 
denly towering  prow ;  somebody's  steering-gear  goes 
wrong;  morning  finds  a  troopship,  suffering  from 
acute  rudder  trouble,  chasing  its  tail  nine  miles  astern 
of  the  convoy.  It  is  nervous  work,  that  of  the  fleet's 
commander  and  of  every  man  engaged.  There  is 
not  a  second  of  sleep  for  any  one,  and  the  land,  even 
on  a  day  of  rain,  rises  from  the  water  like  a  garden 
of  beauty. 

"Engine-room,  standard  speed  twenty.  Left 
rudder,  twenty-five  to  thirty.  Run  up  'Follow  me.' 
Ease  rudder  1" 

We  came  in.  Our  own  destroyer  glided  up  to  its 
particular  buoy  and  stopped  there  with  the  nicety  of 
a  runabout  entering  its  garage.  All  the  men  on  all 
the  transports  were  cheering  again. 

They  always  do.  They  ought  to.  The  destroyers 
deserve  it. 


Your  wife,  she's  your  allotment-girl; 

Your  kid's  your  next  of  kin; 
But  a  mighty  close  relation 

Is  the  ship  that  brings  you  in! 
She  sickens  you;  you  curse  her  out; 

You  call  her  "This  damned  tub"; 
But  you  count  upon  that  transport 

To  dodge  the  subtle  sub! 

Front  New  York  Town  to  Quiberon, 

'Tzvixt  Hampton  Roads  and  Dover, 
There's  no  one  you  depend  on  like 

The  ship  that  brings  you  over! 
So  when  your  feet  are  dry  ashore 

And  she  is  far  azvash, 
You  owe  it  to  the  transport  that 

You  lived  to  fight  the  Boche. 

A  blackened  hold  with  crawling  bunks. 

Five  high  and  seven  deep; 
There  isn't  room  to  vomit,  and 

There  isn't  room  to  sleep ; 
You  get  an  hour  in  the  air 

For  twenty  under  hatch, 
And  when  you  do  not  have  to  drill. 

They  let  you  sit  and  scratch. 

But  never  mind:  you'd  never  see 

Brest,  Boulogne,  Bordeaux,  Dover, 
Except  for  that  old  rattle-trap 

Which  somehow  got  you  over; 
The  transport's  kind  o'  shopworn,  and 

She  takes  too  many  such 
As  you  are,  but,  except  for  her. 

You  wouldn't  fight  the  Dutch, 


A  liner  and  a  lady  once 

The  transport  -was?  Correct  I 
So,  'cause  she  knew  those  better  days, 

You  treat  her  with  respect! 
Just  a  hit  of  reverence 

To  all  her  silvered  hair, 
When  the  steerage  is  first-cabin,  and 

There  ain't  no  cabins  there! 

So  now  that  you  are  safe  ashore — 

Or  dead  ashore,  b'gosh! — 
Remember  'tzvas  the  transport  that 

Conveyed  you  to  the  Boche; 
From  New  York  Town  to  Quiberon, 

'Tivixt  Hampton  Roads  and  Dover, 
Your  one  best  bet  zvas  this  old  tub 

That  somehow  brought  you  over. 

— Song  of  the  Transport  Crew. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  SUBMARINE 

*'T  N  spite  of  the  sinking  of  the  Justicia,  I  beheve 
X  that  the  Germans  are  dissatisfied  with  the  results 
of  their  submarine  warfare.  I  believe  that  Sir  Eric 
Geddes,  the  British  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty, 
was  right  when  he  said  that  the  'submarine  is  held.' 
But  I  also  believe  that  it  is  not  enough  that  the  Ger- 
mans, who  are  extremists,  should  be  dissatisfied,  or 
that  the  submarine  should  be  'held.'  I  believe  that 
the  Germans  should  be  made  to  realize  that  the  sub- 
marine is  a  failure — in  other  words,  I  believe  that 
the  submarine  should  be  crushed.  Is  that  easier  said 
than  done?    I  am  not  so  certain." 

The  man  that  was  talking  to  me  probably  knows 
as  much  about  underseas  warfare  as  anybody  in  the 
Allies'  navies,  and  the  paragraph  just  quoted  is  the 
gist  of  his  opinion  then  expressed.  His  name  it 
would,  for  reasons  presently  obvious,  be  unwise  to 
disclose ;  his  acquaintance  with  the  matter  in  hand  is, 
however,  sufficiently  patent  in  his  words  themselves. 
He  speaks  with  authority. 

"Let  us  look  first,"  he  continued,  "at  the  bright 
side  of  the  picture.  In  a  perfectly  true  sense,  the 
submarine  is  Germany's  confession  of  failure  to  con- 
trol the  surface  of  the  seas.    That  is  to  say  that  the 

122 


TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  SUBMARINE     123 

German  submarine  is  a  creation  of  the  British  Grand 
Fleet.  England's  power  on  the  water  was  too  strong 
for  the  Germans  to  attack  it  there,  and  so  they  had 
to  develop  the  existing  means  of  attacking  it  from 
below;  anybody  will  admit  that,  could  they  have 
hoped  for  a  good  old-fashioned  victory  on  the  waves, 
they  would  have  attempted  one.  But — again  thanks 
to  the  Grand  Fleet — they  haven't  even  been  able  to 
succeed  in  their  under-water  attack,  and  that  is 
proved  by  the  fact  that  they  have  directed  their  ef- 
forts not  against  the  Grand  Fleet,  which  it  goes 
without  saying  they  would  prefer  to  destroy,  but 
chiefly  against  merchantmen.  A  much  longer  delay 
of  victory  ashore  may  eventually  force  the  German 
dreadnoughts  into  the  open;  the  demands  to  be 
shown  something  for  their  money  by  the  German 
bourgeoisie,  which  was  taxed  to  create  those  dread- 
noughts, may  compel  such  an  action;  but  the  Ger- 
man government  will,  if  it  can,  hold  fast  to  the  the- 
ory of  The  Fleet  in  Being' — to  the  theory  that  it  is 
well  to  have  the  asset  of  an  unharmed  force  on  one's 
side  when  one  comes  to  sit  down  at  the  peace-table. 
Meanwhile,  the  submarine  campaign  against  mer- 
chantmen and  transports  will  continue. 

"Again,  there  is  that  domestic  dissatisfaction  with 
the  results  of  such  a  campaign  which  I  have  already 
referred  to.  There  are  now  a  good  many  German 
disciples  of  the  Herr  Professor  Flamm,  of  Char- 
lottenburg,  who,  writing  in  Die  Woche,  wanted 
fewer  men  saved  from  torpedoed  merchant-ships. 


124  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

He  even  took  a  hint  from  the  EngHsh,  who  don't 
pubHcly  report  the  sinking  of  a  submarine  :  he  wants 
all  wreckage  of  submarined  vessels  so  thoroughly- 
destroyed  that  their  unexplained  disappearance  will 
spread  greater  terror — and,  as  I  say,  he  has  his 
followers  who  are  proof  sufficient  of  the  German 
people's  growing  doubt  about  Admiral  Von  Tirpitz's 
promises. 

"And  finally,  there  is  an  argument  to  be  made 
even  on  the  supposition  that  Germany  cleans  up  more 
of  England's  merchant-marine  than  she  has  yet  suc- 
ceeded in  destroying.  In  the  Napoleonic  Wars — in 
the  days  of  the  great  Nelson,  mind  you — England 
took  exactly  440  French  ships  as  against  5,314  Eng- 
lish ships  taken  by  the  French  :  in  other  words,  Eng- 
land then  lost  40  per  cent,  of  her  entire  tonnage — ■ 
and  yet  she  recovered. 

"That  would  seem  to  bear  out  our  own  Admiral 
Mahan's  theory.  He  granted  the  harassment 
caused  a  country  by  serious  interference  with  its 
commerce;  he  admitted  that  such  interference  was 
a  most  important  secondary  part  of  naval  warfare, 
not  likely  to  be  abandoned  till  war  itself  shall  cease; 
but  he  insisted  that  to  regard  it  as  primary  and  fun- 
damental, as  'sufficient  in  itself  to  crush  an  enemy' 
was  'probably  a  delusion,'  and  he  thought  it  was 
certainly  so  when  that  enemy  possessed  such  a  wide- 
spread commerce  and  such  a  powerful  navy  as  are 
possessed  by  Great  Britain. 

"Well,  all  this  may  apply  to  the  present  war;  but 


TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  SUBMARINE     125 

what  of  the  next?  England's  next?  Our  own — 
wherein  our  naval  position  will  be  somewhat  similar 
to  England's  ?  Germany  may  learn  from  her  failures 
— or  other  potential  enemies  may.  They  may  learn 
that  the  failure  is  not  one  of  method  but  of  force, — 
not  of  kind,  but  of  degree.  That  is  why  I  say  that 
we  must  crush  the  submarine  now. 

"We've  now  had  nearly  a  year  and  a  half  of  Ger- 
many's 'unrestricted'  submarine-warfare,  and  what 
have  been  its  results? 

"The  English  are  proudly  pointing  to  the  fact 
that,  in  nearly  all  that  time,  although  the  Germans 
have  sunk  more  than  a  thousand  British  ships  of 
various  tonnage,  they  have  themselves  lost,  in  the 
endeavor,  what  is  calculated  as  pretty  nearly  half 
of  their  total  underwater  fleet.  It  is  added  that,  of 
late,  submarines  are  being  sunk  as  quickly  as  the 
Germans  can  build  them,  and,  on  top  of  this,  there 
comes  the  statement  of  Sir  Eric  Geddes. 

"You  have  seen  that  I  don't  think  the  Ger- 
mans themselves  were  particularly  pleased  with  their 
achievements.  They  can't  disguise  from  themselves 
their  failure  to  fulfill  their  prophecies.  Here  is  their 
expert,  Captain  Persius  coming  out  in  cold  type  with 
the  declaration  that  their  previous  hopes  were  ab- 
surd; and  even  Vice-Admiral  Galster  grants  that 
his  willing  eyes  can't  shut  themselves  to  the  truth  that 
neutral  shipping  hasn't  been  frightened  from  the 
water  and  that  England  is  not  yet  on  her  knees. 
"But  both  the  English  and  their  enemies  overlook, 


126  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

it  seems  to  me,  other  elements  than  the  submarine 
that  enter  into  the  present  state  of  affairs.  For  in- 
stance, England's  food  shortage,  although  accen- 
tuated by  the  activities  of  the  submarine,  is  in  part 
due  to  a  world  shortage  that  the  British  Isles  would 
have  felt,  in  some  degree,  if  the  submarine  had  been 
quiescent.  A  writer  in  the  London  Daily  Mail  also 
points  out  that  the  English  government  has  muddled 
its  food  question  by  so  far  eliminating  its  ship- 
owners, and  replacing  them  with  a  lot  of  not  very 
competent  officials,  that  no  end  of  delay  has  resulted 
in  the  direction  of  the  movements  of  shipping  and 
that,  therefore,  carrying-power  has  been  reduced. 
To  get  the  true  view  of  England's  relation  to  the 
submarine-menace,  you  mustn't  only  count  the  ton- 
nage of  the  ships  sunk;  you  must  also  take  into  con- 
sideration the  world  food-shortage  on  the  one  hand, 
and,  on  the  other,  must  compare  the  number  of  ships 
sunk  with  the  number  of  ships  in  transit  during  the 
period  under  discussion. 

"But  any  farsighted  naval  man  will  tell  you  one 
thing.  He  will  tell  you  that,  for  their  own  future 
protection,  the  British  Isles  will  have  to  find  a  means, 
during  this  war,  of  stamping  out  the  submarine;  to 
think  that  it  is  sufficient  to  'hold  it'  is  a  positive 
peril.  The  nation  that  replied  in  the  past  to  Eng- 
land's blockade  on  top  of  the  sea  by  a  counter- 
blockade  underneath  the  sea  is  likely,  at  any  time 
in  the  future,  to  initiate  a  new  and  more  successful 
underseas  blockade.     Because  Germany  didn't  sue- 


TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  SUBMARINE     127 

ceed  in  starving  England  in  1917  is  no  guarantee 
that  she  won't  try  again  in  1950. 

"The  submarine  began  in  America,  as  most  of  the 
inventions  perfected  in  this  war  began — and,  as 
with  most  of  them,  our  redtape  bureaucrats  let  it 
get  away  from  them.  Then  the  perfected  plans  were 
passed,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Lewis  gun,  to  England; 
but  England,  in  those  days,  was  careless — she  mis- 
trusted any  new  thing,  and  her  then  comfortable 
naval  officers  didn't  like  the  idea  of  the  hard  living 
and  messing  about  with  enlisted  men  enforced  by 
the  submarine — and  so  she  pigeonholed  the  plans. 
When  she  heard  that  France  was  playing  with  the 
idea,  English  naval  authorities  caused  the  publica- 
tion of  statements  belittling  it  and,  owing  to  the  in- 
fluence of  the  tradition  that  Britannia  knew  every- 
thing about  the  waves  that  she  was  ruling,  the 
French  took  this  British  authoritative  opinion  and 
— left  canny  Germany  to  develop  the  underseas 
craft. 

"Because  of  her  geographical  position,  her  trade 
and  her  scant  agriculture,  England  should  have 
tackled  the  submarine-menace  years  ago.  Now  that 
she's  learned  a  thing  or  two,  she  must  see  that  she 
has  got  to  scotch  it  if  she  values  her  existence. 

"When  you  get  down  to  it,  what  do  any  of  us — 
even  the  experts — know  about  the  German  sub,  any- 
how? As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  obtainable  data  isn't 
much ;  it  has  been  best  summarized  by  the  Engineer- 
ing Committee  of  the  American  National  Research 


128  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

Council,  and  it  amounts,  in  primer  terms,  to  about 
this: 

"The  submarine  is  a  relatively  small,  submersi- 
ble boat,  carrying  generally  only  one  gun  and  a  crew 
of  from  thirty  to  forty  men,  and  most  deadly  be- 
cause of  her  torpedoes.  These  torpedoes  are  effect- 
ive at  ten  thousand  yards ;  they  are  really  little  auto- 
matic ships,  driven  by  their  own  engines  and  steered 
by  their  own  steering-gear — the  latter  set  accord- 
ing to  calculations  just  before  the  torpedo  is 
launched  against  its  victim — and  they  can  travel 
under  water  at  from  eight  to  ten  knots,  which  is 
equal  to  the  speed  of  the  average  merchantman,  or 
on  the  surface  at  from  eighteen  to  twenty  knots, 
which  is  far  faster  than  the  average  merchantman 
can  run  away  from  them. 

"The  submarine  goes  hunting  alone  or  in  pack- 
formation.  It  has  a  possible  cruising-radius  of  any- 
where from  four  thousand  five  hundred  to  eight 
thousand  miles,  if  it  doesn't  exceed  an  average 
speed  of  from  ten  to  twelve  knots  for  surface  travel. 
It  can  keep  out  of  port  for  about  a  month — maybe  a 
few  days  more  at  a  pinch — and  the  Germans  have 
been  using  not  only  supply-bases  off  Iceland  and  oil 
supplies  submerged  at  sea,  but  also,  as  the  British 
fleet  recently  discovered,  ashore  in  Iceland  and 
Greenland. 

"The  submarine's  usual  track  for  undersea-travel 
is  not  less  than  fifty  and  not  more  than  one  hundred 
feet  below  the  surface;  the  gyroscope  compass  is 


TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  SUBMARINE     129 

used.  Submergence  is  possible  to  a  depth  of  two 
hundred  feet,  and  the  best  tactic  consists  of  lying  on 
a  proper  sea-floor  and  using  listening  devices  to  de- 
tect the  approach  of  the  prey.  When  the  ocean  is 
very  deep,  the  submarine,  which  prefers  a  dive  of 
about  fifty  feet,  will  go  down  into  it  only  a  short 
distance,  but  that  is  not  altogether  satisfactory,  be- 
cause it  then  has  to  maintain  steerage-way  to  keep 
its  level  of  submergence,  which  makes  its  speed  from 
two  to  four  knots.  For  underwater  travel,  the  old 
German  types  could  count  on  doing  ten  knots,  the 
newest  must  make  half  again  as  much.  On  the  sur- 
face— and,  for  the  unaccustomed  eye,  it  is  almost 
as  hard  to  see  a  submarine's  hull  as  it  is  to  see  her 
periscope — the  maximum  speed  is  from  fourteen  to 
twenty.  It  is  also  possible  for  a  good  submarine  to 
take  a  sort  of  up-and-down  course,  now  nearly  on 
the  water  and  now  well  under  it. 

"Its  game,  of  course,  is,  warned  of  a  vessel's  ap- 
proach, to  rise  high  enough  to  get  an  observation 
with  a  periscope — the  newest  types  have  three  per- 
iscopes— secure  a  favorable  position  and  then  let 
drive  with  a  torpedo.  The  latest  models,  if  they're 
not  too  deep,  can  come  up  and  get  their  observation 
in  as  little  as  fifteen  seconds — none  of  them  takes 
more  than  a  half  minute,  and  from  their  greatest 
depth  of  submergence,  they  can  rise  in  from  one  to 
four  minutes.  We  used  to  think  they  aimed  their 
torpedo  best  by  changing  the  direction  of  the  sub- 
marine, but  that  doesn't  seem  true  of  the  new  sort; 


130  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

all  we  are  sure  of  is  that  the  torpedo  can  travel 
nearer  the  surface  in  smooth  water  than  in  rough, 
but  that  its  best  average  depth  is  ten  feet." 

I  asked  about  the  submarine's  defects. 

"They  are  plentiful,"  said  my  informant.  "On 
the  surface,  the  submarine  is  dangerous  only  to  her- 
self in  the  presence  of  a  ship  properly  armed  and 
properly  manned ;  her  one  or  two  guns  can  bring  a 
harmless  merchantman  to  terms — nothing  more. 
She  is  defenseless  against  air-attack,  having  a  hull 
that  is  of  necessity  a  mere  egg-shell;  she  can  be 
easily  rammed  to  bits  or  broken  wide  open  by  a  direct 
hit  from  a  well-directed  gun.  Moreover,  when  com- 
pletely submerged,  although  not  deaf,  she  is  blind, 
and  is  liable  to  crushing  by  the  slight  shock  of  a 
depth-charge  exploded  at  some  distance  from  her." 

Then  I  was  curious  as  to  how  far  from  the  sides 
of  a  ship  a  protecting  shield  or  net,  which  would 
explode  a  torpedo,  ought  to  be  placed  for  safety. 

"That,"  said  my  informant,  "depends  on  the 
depth  of  the  torpedo,  the  strength  of  the  ship's  sides 
and  the  weight  of  the  explosive  charge.  Consider- 
ing the  usual  torpedo  and  the  usual  merchant-ship, 
say  twenty-five  feet.  Anyhow,  though  naval  ex- 
perts disagree  on  most  things,  they  are  of  one  mind 
on  this — the  distance  would  have  to  be  so  great  that 
the  net  or  shield  idea,  though  here  and  there  in  use, 
is  not  by  any  means  what  some  persons  hoped  it 
would  be.  We  might  get  a  sound-device  that  would 
catch  or  register  the  submarine's  rudder  or  propeller 


TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  SUBMARINE     131 

movements  while  cutting  out  all  conflicting  sounds ; 
but  that,  in  its  perfected  state,  is  still  to  find. 

"So  far,  if  I  may  commit  an  Hibernianism, 
most  of  our  ways  of  meeting  the  submarine  are  ways 
of  avoiding  it.  I  mean  that  we  depend  to  a  large 
extent  on  warnings  sent  by  radio  to  ships  at  sea, 
which  are,  to  be  sure,  well  enough,  and  on  such  nav- 
igating devices  as  zigzagging.  Now,  zigzagging  is 
all  right  in  itself:  the  submarine  sees  the  merchant- 
man, or  troopship,  notes  his  course,  maneuvers  to 
get  her  own  torpedo-tubes  in  play,  submerges  and 
lets  drive ;  but  meanwhile  the  intended  victim  has  put 
her  helm  over  to  starboard  or  port,  as  the  case  may 
be — has  zigzagged,  in  other  words — and  the  sub- 
marine, which  loses  turning  power  as  well  as  speed 
by  submersion,  has  had  her  calculations  knocked  into 
a  cocked  hat :  she  must  begin  all  over  again.  That 
sounds  well,  but  zigzagging  makes  a  long  voyage; 
many  worthwhile  merchant-ships  do  less  than  eight 
knots,  and  the  zigzag  doesn't  appreciably  lessen  the 
risks  for  a  boat  doing  under  ten. 

"In  my  opinion,  the  successful  weapon  for  use 
against  the  submarine  is  one  already  to  hand.  I 
mean  the  destroyer.  She  is  quick,  she  is  fatal,  she 
is  a  difficult  mark.  The  only  trouble  is  that  neither 
we  nor  the  British  have  enough  of  her.  We  Amer- 
icans were  promised  one  new  destroyer  a  week  after 
January  1st,  1918,  and  in  the  four  following  months 
we  got  exactly  two,  of  which  one  was  immediately 
laid  up  for  repairs.     However,   construction  will 


132  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

increase  and  efficiency  with  it.  If  this  war  lasts  an- 
other eighteen  months,  the  submarine  will  have  be- 
come a  negligible  factor,  and  it  will  have  been  the 
destroyer  that  made  it  so. 

"Frankly,  I  l^elieve  that  the  sub  is  being  held  even 
now,  as  Sir  Eric  Geddes  says  it  is,  and  I  believe  it 
is,  therefore,  no  more  than  a  partial  success  in  the 
present  war,  necessitating  only  greater  efforts  in 
ship-production  and  causing  only  the  minimum  of 
suffering.  But  I  am  just  as  certain  that  England,  on 
her  part,  must  consider  the  matter  of  big  destroyer- 
fleets  before  she  gets  into  her  next  war.  And  so 
must  we." 


Oh,  say,  zve  can  see  from  a  hell  of  a  height 

What  you  stupidly  miss  till  it's  blozvn  you  to  glory 
(To  zcit:  the  sub's  hull  undersea)  and  alight 

With  a  pounce  on  the  same  that  is  sublimatory ; 
Not  exploding  in  air,  why,  our  bombs  do  not  glare. 
But  the  bubbles  proclaim  that  the  sub's  no  more  there. 
O,  Boy,  it's  a  ten-to-one  shot  that  the  zvave 
Has  closed  evermore  o'er  the  submarine's  grave! 

From  on  high,  dimly  seen  through  the  waves  of  the 

deep. 
Where  the  pestilent  periscope  noiselessly  noses, 
What  is  this  which  the  breeze  helps  to  grape-vine  and 

leap, 
Now  its  top's  zvhere  its  bottom  was,  head  zuhere  its 

toes  is — 
Or  "are,"  if  you'd  rather.    No  refuge  can  save 
The  sub  of  the  Dutch  and  the  sobs  of  the  slave: 
This  breeze-tossed  affair  that  poor  Heinie  and  Gus 
Have  watched  with  despair  and  dismay — it  is  us! 

Oh,  thus  be  it  ever;  so  long  as  zve  fly, 

May  zve  still  put  it  over  our  Teutonic  fellow: 
May  observer  and  pilot  and  pigeons  on  high. 

While  the  motor  revolves  and  the  little  bombs  bellow. 
Remain  zvithout  fright  through  the  perilous  flight. 
For,  by  jiminy-crickets,  we're  serving  Fritz  right! 
So  long  may  the  Star-Spangled  Banner  yet  zvave 
(And  us!)  o'er  the  submarine's  zvatery  grave! 

— Fly-Cops  (Hydroaeroplanes.) 


PART  FOUR 

Taking  Chances 

CHAPTER  X 

UP  IN  THE  AIR 

ON  the  surface  of  the  sea  there  was  nothing 
visible ;  but  over  the  waters,  and  high  up  in  the 
air,  floated  two  big,  black  birds.  They  flew  in  the 
manner  of  turkey-buzzards,  but  more  swiftly.  Like 
turkey-buzzards,  they  circled  as  over  unseen  carrion. 
Their  flight  was  accompanied  by  a  low  whirring 
noise.  It  was  like  the  sound  that  the  distant  saw- 
mill used  to  make  back  home,  when  you  were  a  boy. 

Suddenly  one  of  them  swept  downwards.  As  it 
did  so,  the  noise  increased  to  a  roar.  The  bird 
ceased  to  be  black  and  became  yellow,  with  dashes 
of  blue  and  red  upon  it. 

Then,  out  of  the  waters,  from  some  little  trough 
of  the  waves,  there  came  an  incredible  shot. 

The  descending  bird  lurched  to  one  side,  righted 
itself,  quivered.  For  an  instant,  it  seemed  to  remain 
stationary  in  air.  The  next,  and  it  struggled  up- 
ward. It  was  plain  that  the  bird  had  been  hit  in 
some  vital  spot  by  that  aquatic  sportsman  and  that 
it  was  trying  to  regain  its  mate. 

It  never  succeeded.    Again  it  paused.    It  quivered 

134 


UP  IN  THE  AIR  135 

again.  Then,  with  a  sudden  despairing  roar  that 
grew  in  violence  as  the  descent  increased,  it  plunged 
down.  It  struck  the  water  with  a  great  splash.  It 
partially  submerged,  came  up,  floated. 

Two  hundred  yards  away,  a  long,  low  gray  wave 
showed  itself,  a  wave  that  tossed  with  the  other 
waves,  but  did  not  break  as  they,  a  solid  wave.  On 
it  appeared  silhouettes,  the  silhouettes  of  men.  Some 
of  them  were  busied  about  a  gim.  The  gun  spat  at 
the  wounded  bird  in  the  water. 

One  of  the  silhouettes  lifted  a  megaphone  to  its 
lips.    It  said : 
"Surrender!" 

An  answering  silhouette — two  of  them — became 
discernible  on  the  back  of  the  broken,  bobbing  bird. 
One  of  these  had  a  megaphone  also. 
"Not  on  your  life,"  he  replied. 
The  voice  of  the  first  speaker  came  clearly: 
"If  you  don't,"  it  said  in  an  accent  only  slightly 
German,  "we  shall  blow  you  to  bits.    Then  you're 
either  dead  or  prisoners,  anyhow." 

The  other  voice  replied  again,  and  its  accent  was 
pure  Yankee. 

"Aw,  go  to  hell !"  it  said. 

The  gun  spat.  Its  shot  touched  the  intervening 
water,  skipped  as  a  stone  that  a  boy  "skips"  in  the 
river,  and  tore  away  one  of  the  wings  of  the  bird. 
Then,  all  in  a  twinkling,  there  was  a  giant  hiss 
and  a  tremendous  roar.  A  broad  flash  appeared 
from  the  crest  of  the  solid  wave  on  which  the  Ger- 


136  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

manic  sportsman  had  been  standing.  The  wave 
seemed  to  rise  on  end.  It  seemed  to  blow  up  and 
sink.  It  left  bubbles,  and  a  black  scum,  and  wreck- 
age— and  some  dark  forms  struggling  in  water. 

The  solid  wave  had  been  a  Teutonic  submarine. 
The  birds  were  hydroaeroplanes  attached  to  the 
American  Naval  Forces  operating  in  French  waters. 
While  dealing  with  the  one  that  was  wounded,  the 
submarine  had  missed  the  unwounded  plane,  and 
that,  at  considerable  risk  to  the  observer  and  pilot 
of  its  fellow,  had  dropped  a  bomb  and  wiped  its 
and  their  enemy  forever  from  the  ocean's  face. 

Incidents  of  this  sort  are  not  daily  occurrences 
along  the  coast  of  France,  but  they  are  increasing 
in  frequency,  and  they  are  at  once  in  the  line  of 
duty  and  the  chief  fillip  of  delight  in  the  otherwise 
dull  lives  of  our  hydro-aviators.  Hidden  away, 
through  dreary  days  and  nights,  in  little  coves  and 
inlets  and  on  almost  desert  islands,  these  men  be- 
come, at  stated  intervals,  the  scouts  of  the  nearer 
sea.  Besides  guiding  the  convoys,  they  must  scour 
their  destined  lanes.  To  their  high  vision,  the  sea 
loses  all  refraction  and  presents  a  smooth  surface; 
not  only  is  their  circle  of  observation  larger  than 
that  of  a  ship  afloat :  they  can  see  any  foreign  bulk 
that  is  suspended  a  considerable  depth  below  the 
water  —  it  may  be  only  a  whale,  or  it  may  in- 
deed be  a  submarine,  but  they  can  see  it.  They  can 
detect,  sooner  than  a  vessel,  the  wake  of  a  periscope, 
and  they  can  detect  mines.     They  must  bomb  the 


UP    IN    THE   AIR  137 

submarines  and  mines,  or  at  least  mark  the  latter 
by  phosphor  bombs,  notify  the  convoy  when  it  is 
within  reach  and  report,  by  carrier-pigeon  or  radio, 
to  the  home-station  and  the  Naval  Base. 

At  that  Base,  I  once  found  the  chief  of  staff 
groaning  over  a  newly-received  order.    It  read : 

Arriving  to-day,  to  construct  hydro-aviation  sta- 
tion: 

Carpenters'  mates 375 

Boatswains'  mates  and  riggers. .    122 

Bricklayers  and  masons 38 

Electricians,  firemen,  machinists     75 
Radio-constructors  (similar  pro- 
portion)      250 

"And,"  said  the  chief  of  staff,  "we've  got  to  be 
ready  to  house  and  feed  these  860  extra  men  at  a 
moment's  notice !" 

The  station  that  I  first  visited  was  in  full  opera- 
tion. To  get  there  involved  a  day's  swift  motor 
ride  from  the  Base,  ending  in  a  long  drive  across 
apparently  endless  sea-marshes  and  over  a  long 
bridge  to  an  island  that  was  no  more  than  ancient 
sand-dunes  rising  a  little  above  the  level  of  the  sea. 
There  was  a  row  of  low,  wooden  barracks  and, 
near  by  and  between  the  ocean  and  the  inlet,  three 
vast  barns,  with  semicircular  canvas  roofs  of  green 
and  blue :  the  hangars  where  the  scouting-birds 
nested. 

"Better  put  out  your  cigarette,"  said  the  com- 


138  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

mander.  "It's  against  the  rules  to  smoke  near  the 
hangars." 

I  obeyed,  and  we  entered,  our  steps  ringing  loud 
on  a  cement  floor. 

All  around  us  were  those  planes — I  was  about  to 
say  those  "amphibious"  planes,  but  these  live,  of 
course,  in  the  air  as  well  as  on  land  and  in  the  water, 
and  they  are  a  thing  still  so  new  that  we  have  not 
yet  coined  the  necessary  adjective.  Yellow  they  are 
of  body,  and  their  tails  are  tipped  with  the  tricolor 
of  France — half  boat  and  half  bird,  constructed  to 
fit  on  light-wheeled  trucks  for  transportation 
ashore.  They  reminded  me  of  racing-shells  and 
long-ago  days  when  Harvard  crews  raced  Yale  on 
the  American  Thames. 

"Length  of  hull,  thirty-four  feet  by  three,"  the 
officer  was  saying;  "fifty  by  five  across  the  wings. 
Notice  those  wing-tip  pontoons;  they  are  intended 
for  maintenance  of  balance  when  on  the  surface  of 
the  water  and  to  prevent  the  waves  from  washing 
over  the  wings  and  pulling  you  in." 

He  told  me  that,  to  the  expert  flyer,  the  plane  be- 
comes a  part  of  his  body  and  responds  to  its  com- 
mander's will  as  readily  and  as  rapidly  as  his  arms 
and  legs:  the  hydro-aviator  is  of  centaurian  blood. 
A  naval  Captain,  the  commander  of  the  destroyer 
Stewart,  once  confirmed  this : 

"We  were  ahead  of  a  convoy,"  he  said.  "I  was 
on  the  bridge  and  a  plane  was  circling  pretty  far 
ahead.   All  of  a  sudden  it  saw  something.   First  it 


UP   IN   THE   AIR  139 

dropped  a  smoke-bomb  to  mark  the  place  for  us; 
then  it  swept  right  toward  us.  We  were  going  full 
speed  ahead.  The  plane  got  alongside — but  in  the 
air,  you  know — and  then  swooped  down  and  crossed 
just  above  the  bridge.  In  spite  of  its  noise  and  ours 
and  the  wind's,  that  plane  came  so  low  that,  when 
its  observer  talked  to  me  through  his  megaphone,  I 
could  hear  every  word  he  said." 

The  Stezmrt  charged  the  marked  spot  and 
dropped  a  depth-charge.  There  is  excellent  reason 
to  believe  that  she  "got"  the  submarine,  which  the 
plane  had  discovered  completely  submerged. 

"It's  all  perfectly  simple,"  said  the  officer  that 
was  showing  me  the  hangars.  "When  you  go  after  a 
sub,  all  you've  got  to  remember  is  to  come  up 
against  the  wind,  release  your  bombs  together  and 
then  drop  phosphor-pots  to  mark  the  place." 

At  this  camp  and  the  others  that  I  visited,  our 
hydro-aviators  tend  toward  a  type.  They  are  slim 
and  lithe,  with  quick  eyes  and  lean  faces  and  the  ad- 
mirable habit  of  silence.  The  average  age  is  twen- 
ty-three, and  the  preliminary  home-training  covers 
a  matter  of  six  months,  followed  by  hard  practical 
work  at  some  such  station  as  that  at  Pensacola.  For 
the  most  part,  the  men  now  serving  in  our  hydro- 
aeroplane service  in  France  are  young  volunteers 
that  offered  themselves  when  we  declared  war. 

Though  they  serve  in  the  air  and  live  ashore,  their 
language  and  customs,  like  those  of  the  Marines,  are 
purely  naval.     Many  of  them  have  never  been  on 


140'  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

the  ocean,  save  for  their  trip  across  in  the  transport, 
but  they  are  all  subject  to  severe  reprimand  if,  while 
on  duty,  they  employ  any  but  sailors'  terms :  they 
cleaned  their  mess-halls  before  I  lectured  to  them 
there,  and  they  called  it  "swabbing  the  decks"; 
though  their  commanding-officer,  whatever  his  rank, 
is  called  "Captain,"  all  his  subalterns  are  addressed 
as  "Mr." 

"It's  this  way,"  a  mechanic  in  a  sailor's  uniform 
explained.     "If  an  officer  says  to  me,  'Tell  Jones, 
Seaman  2-c.,  to  report  to  the  Captain  of  the  Yard,' 
why,  I  say,  'Aye,  aye,  sir,'  and  if  a  petty  officer 
talks  to  me,  I've  got  to  say  'sir'  to  him;  but  among 
ourselves  we — well,  we  talk  like  home." 
I  turned  to  a  man  standing  beside  him. 
"Isn't  it  rather  dull  out  here?"  I  asked. 
"It's  not  for  me,"  he  answered,  "for  I'm  on  the 
Alert  Section,  and  the  Alert  Section  doesn't  get  lib- 
erty." 

"There's  nowhere  to  go  when  you  do  get  it," 
the  first  man  supplemented — "  'less  it's  in  bathin'," 
he  added. 

The  flight  commander  took  me  over  to  see  the 
pigeons,  which  are  by  no  means  the  least  important 
section  of  the  personnel  at  every  hydro-aviation  sta- 
tion. There  they  were,  at  least  a  hundred  of  them, 
presided  over  by  an  expert  detailed  to  take  care  of 
them  and  responsible  for  both  their  performance  and 
well-being.  Their  house  was  a  pigeon-palace;  not 
even  show-birds  and  prize  exhibition-birds  are  better 


UP    IN   THE   AIR  141 

looked  after.  Every  plane  that  leaves  the  island 
takes  with  it  a  basket  of  pigeons;  as  soon  as  the 
sought  convoy  is  sighted,  or  a  mine  or  submarine 
observed,  two  pigeons — they  work  better  in  pairs 
and  are  safer  against  attack  from  hawks — are  re- 
leased, bearing  news  of  the  event,  and  hurry  home- 
ward. 

It  was  a  pilot  who  came  abroad  with  our  first  de- 
stroyers that  told  me  first  of  the  work  of  the  mere 
men: 

"Without  hydroaeroplanes,"  he  said,  "the  quick- 
est convoy  and  the  keenest  destroyers  are  sort  of 
near-sighted :  any  time  a  sub's  liable  to  pop  up  un- 
looked-for and  give  them  a  tin  fish ;  but  we  can  see 
into  the  water  to  a  depth  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet, 
and  we  can't  ourselves  be  seen  through  a  periscope. 
Generally  speaking,  we  fly  at  a  height  of  from  two 
hundred  to  three  hundred  metres." 

I  ventured  to  remark  that  that  was  rather  high. 

"Hydro-aviation,"  said  he,  "is  the  best  grade 
of  plane  work.  You've  only  got  to  look  at  the  ques- 
tion of  landing  to  see  that.  In  land  flying,  when  you 
come  down,  you  just  hit  your  tail  on  the  ground — ■ 
you  know  you'll  just  slide  down — but  at  sea,  you 
come  down  as  if  you  were  falling." 

He  explained  that  our  stations  were  working  in 
conjunction  with  the  French  and  that,  as  yet,  we 
were  using  French  planes. 

"The  hard  thing  to  master,"  he  continued,  "is  the 
signals.     There  are  more  confoimded  signals  than 


142  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

there  are  things  to  signal  about.  For  instance,  if 
Allied  subs  are  working  with  a  convoy,  word  is  sent 
us  beforehand,  but  those  subs  have  signals  to  identify 
them,  just  the  same.  Before  each  flight,  every  ob- 
server going  out  is  given  a  copy  of  the  signals  agreed 
on  with  the  convoy,  and  if  he  doesn't  know  them  by 
the  time  he  sights  that  convoy,  he's  liable  to  get  into 
the  worst  trouble  he'll  ever  get  into  this  side  of  the 
grave.  Everybody  knows  a  red  pennant  on  a  plane 
means  power-trouble,  don't  they?  Well,  that's  be- 
cause it  always  means  the  same  thing;  but  these  sig- 
nals that  mean  different  things  every  time — gee 
whiz!" 

The  hydroaeroplanes — they  weigh  about  three 
thousand  pounds  each — travel,  when  on  active  duty, 
at  an  average  speed  of  sixty  miles  an  hour;  they 
carry  fuel  that  will  feed  their  six-hundred-pound 
motor  for  four  hours;  and  they  also  carry  two 
bombs,  a  machine-gun,  the  already-mentioned  pig- 
eons, a  wireless  apparatus,  a  pilot  and  an  observer. 
The  observer  takes  care  of  the  ordnance,  instru- 
ments, reconnaissance,  navigation  and  signals ;  what 
his  superior  officer,  the  pilot,  takes  care  of,  beyond 
mere  mechanics,  I  have  not  yet  been  able  to  discover : 
the  reason  why  an  observer  outranks  a  pilot  is  a  mys- 
tery second  only  to  that  which,  in  poker,  allows  a 
flush  to  beat  a  straight. 

"Allowing  for  the  time  of  year,"  said  my  in- 
formant, "we  mostly  work  between  4  a.  m.  and  10 


UP   IN   THE   AIR  143 

p.  M.  Each  station  has  a  zone  of  the  ocean  to  take 
care  of;  we  pick  up  a  convoy  when  it  enters  our  zone 
and  carry  it  on  till  the  folks  from  the  next  station 
meet  it  at  the  beginning  of  their  zone  :  it's  rather  like 
policemen  patrolling  their  beats  and  meeting  at  the 
end  of  them. 

"Our  standing  orders  are  to  approach  vessels  at 
an  altitude  low  enough  to  identify  them.  Then  the 
chief  of  the  flying-station  stays  over  the  convoy  and 
circles  about  within  half  a  mile  of  it;  there,  and 
when  he's  on  any  other  sort  of  job,  he  sends  radio 
reports  home  every  fifteen  minutes.  The  rule  is  that 
at  least  two  planes  must  always  start  together  and 
must  keep  in  sight  of  each  other;  when  there  are 
four  planes  out,  they  work  in  pairs.  Two  hours 
after  one  section  has  gone  out,  another  is  sent  to  re- 
lieve it;  if  one  plane  out  of  two  or  three  is  crippled 
and  has  to  return  to  the  Base,  then  the  whole  lot  must 
return,  too.  The  detonators  are  attached  to  the 
bombs  only  when  an  action  is  imminent  and  never 
when  w^e're  near  a  friendly  ship;  if  any  bombs  are 
released,  one  plane  has  to  go  home  and  tell  about  it 
— radio  or  pigeon  won't  do.  Of  course,  we've  all 
got  to  be  home  by  dark." 

Into  any  lengthy  description  of  my  own  flights  I 
need  not  go.  Like  a  big  fish  or  a  small  viking-galley 
going  stern-foremost,  the  plane  looked  as  it  was 
hauled  on  its  cart  from  the  hangar  and  as,  a  moment 
later,  it  was  being  towed  by  a  long  rope  to  which 


144  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

clung  men  soon  neck-deep  in  the  water  of  the  inlet. 
Swathed  in  their  strange  flying-clothes,  the  pilot  and 
observer  made  that  inspection  which  the  regulations 
require  shall  be  made  of  each  machine  before  every 
flight.    Here  are  its  appalling  admonitions : 

Power-plant : 

Be  sure  that  there  is  water  to  cool  the  radiator ; 

See  that  the  gas  and  oil  supply  are  sufficient ; 

That  the  motor  is  warmed  up  to  proper  tem- 
perature ; 

That  the  revolution-counter  is  working; 

Also  the  oil-gauge; 

That  the  gasoline-supply  cocks  are  open ; 

And  ignition  perfect; 

That  each  of  the  two  magnetos  works  inde- 
pendently; 

Examine  the  auxiliary  air-lever ; 

Regulate  the  throttle-valve; 

See  that  there  are  no  leaks  in  gas,  oil  or  water 
lines ; 

And  that  the  propeller  is  properly  aligned ; 

As  well  as  that  the  necessary  emergency  tool- 
kit is  complete. 

Structure : 

Have  the  controls  in  perfect  working  order; 

All  the  safety-wires  in  place; 

Each  wire  unbroken  and  at  proper  tension; 

All  pullies  lubricated; 

No  iDroken  spars  or  torn  fabric ; 

No  water  aboard  from  that  shipped  during  the 

last  trip ; 
Tow-line  attached; 


ViKikii 


\4  tt' 


■i'   Wf 


-^    :3 


K 


13 
J3 


UP   IN   THE   AIR  145 

Ballast  adjusted; 
Barograph  at  zero; 
Clock  set  and  running; 
Speed-meter  in  order. 

Ordnance : 

Corpets  in  working-shape ; 
Releasing-devices  lubricated ; 
Bombs  in  place  (if  going  for  bombing-work) ; 
Detonators  in  place,  properly  secured  and  safely 

locked ; 
Bomb-sights  in  perfect  condition; 
Gun  in  place  and  working; 
Ammunition  provided. 

Accessories : 

Four  pigeons,  with  message-holders  in  place, 

with  pencil  and  pad ; 
Pistols  and  one  box  of  cartridges; 
Four  phosphor-pots ; 
Ditto  distress-signals ; 
Field-glasses,  chart  and  pencil  therefor; 
Note-book ; 

Four  signal-buoys,  with  board  and  pencil  at- 
tached ; 
Signal-flares,  with  suspension-wire  and  weight; 
Signal-book,  sea-anchor,  box  of  matches; 
Two  pieces  of  chalk ; 
Cup  for  spreading  oil ; 
Radio  set  in  working  order; 
Three  life-buoys; 
Emergency- rations ; 
Wire-cutter. 


146  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

One  behind  the  other,  there  are  two  circular  holes 
in  the  body  of  a  plane.  In  these,  each  on  a  chair 
that  is  so  low  as  to  leave  little  more  than  his  head 
visible  above  the  surface,  sit  the  pilot  and  observer, 
the  former  forward — his  binoculars  almost  contin- 
ually at  his  eyes,  clustered  about  him  the  compass, 
altometre,  chart,  clock,  wireless  apparatus,  sights 
and  bomb-releases — the  latter  nearer  the  center,  a 
compass  beside  him,  too,  and  the  oil-gauges,  air- 
pressure  and  speed  indicators  and  fire-extinguishers 
all  within  easy  reach. 

"Watch  out  for  the  woodwork!"  That  is  the 
warning  given  every  passenger.  "We've  got  a 
twenty-horse-power  motor,  but  the  body  of  a  plane 
is  only  three-ply  birch.  Even  a  rough  landing 
would  bust  us,  and  every  fifty  hours  there  has  to  be 
an  overhauling." 

When  you  go  up  in  a  hydroaeroplane,  you  know 
it.  With  a  mighty  shout,  the  men  in  the  water  cast 
off  the  rope;  the  motor,  directly  overhead,  begins  a 
whirring  that  drowns  the  mechanics'  cheers;  there 
is  set  up  a  vibration  compared  with  which  the  great- 
est vibration  of  the  smallest  automobile  is  the  mere 
rustle  of  a  leaf;  the  vehicle  glides  over  the  surface 
of  the  sea ;  the  pilot  leans  forward  and  pulls  some- 
thing, or  turns  something — and  the  forward  end  of 
that  winged,  three-ply  birch-canoe  rises  gently  into 
the  ether.  You  are  going  up;  you  are  flying;  you 
are  afloat  on  nothing  with  only  the  sky  above  and  the 
receding  ocean  beneath. 


UP   IN   THE   AIR  147 

There  is  not  much  conversation ;  in  fact,  the  noise 
of  the  motor  washes  out  nearly  every  other  sound, 
and,  I  have  been  told,  there  is  no  discernible  noise 
during  any  battle  in  the  air.  If  you  are  not  a  good 
sailor,  you  are  seasick,  and  if  you  are  not  bundled 
up  from  toes  to  head,  you  are  miserably  cold.  It 
takes  you  some  time  to  make  up  your  mind  to  look 
overside,  and  when  you  do,  it  is  to  see  only  flat 
water  below  you,  with  here  and  there  a  toy  sail  upon 
it,  and,  perhaps,  off  to  right  or  left,  the  land,  which 
looks  like  nothing  so  much  as  the  make-believe  made- 
in-Germany  land  that  the  children  used  to  set  around 
the  base  of  Christmas-trees. 

The  pilot  draws  the  lever  toward  him  when  he 
wants  to  mount  and  pushes  it  away  in  order  to  de- 
scend; he  turns  his  wheel  in  that  direction  in  which 
he  wants  the  plane  to  tilt,  and  to  turn  the  craft  his 
feet  press  either  the  right  or  the  left  of  the  pair  of 
pedals  at  the  bottom  of  the  hole  in  which  he  is 
squatting.  These  are  the  facts,  but  you  don't  at 
first  realize  them ;  at  first,  the  pilot  is  likely  to  begin 
your  initiation  by  working  "All  out,"  which  is  to  say 
at  full  speed,  and  then  all  your  attention  is  centered 
in  getting  your  breath  and  wondering  how  short  a 
time  will  pass  before  the  seemingly  inevitable  fall. 

"It's  a  great  life,"  said  my  observer,  as  he  clam- 
bered, at  last,  out  of  his  craft  on  its  return  to  the 
good  dry  land. 

"If  you  don't  weaken,"  added  the  pilot. 

"It's  a  merry  life,"  said  the  observer. 


148  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

The  pilot  looked  at  the  sky ;  he  looked  at  the  smil- 
ing sea. 

"And  a  short  one,"  he  concluded. 


Fighting f    Fighting's  very  well; 

Fighting's  something  quick! 
Work-and-ivaiting,  that's  the  job 

Makes  a  fellow  sick. 

Get  a  bullet  in  your  chest — 

Dead  before  you  show  it. 
Try  to  drink  the  ocean  up — 

Dead  before  you  know  it. 

Dying's  such  a  speedy  thing, 

Where's  the  time  for  tears? 
Working  just  goes  on  and  on, 

Weeks  and  months  and  years  f 

—Base-Men. 


CHAPTER  XI 

TWO  HARD  JOBS 

THE  hardest  things  about  war  are  its  dull 
spots,  and  the  worst  of  the  dull  spots  are  that 
they  are,  as  often  as  not,  among  the  most  important. 
In  modern  naval  warfare — at  least  as  one  sees  it  on 
and  along  the  coast  of  France — not  the  least  vital 
work  is  the  dreariest,  and  this  is  done  by  two  very 
different  sorts  of  men:  to  wit,  the  men  of  the  ob- 
servation-balloons and  the  stevedores.  The  former 
sound  romantic  and  the  latter  prosaic;  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  both  are  picturesque  figures  enough,  and 
both  have  tasks  that  are  as  stupid  as  they  are  vital. 

1 :    The  Observation-Balloons 

Fill  the  baskets, 
Fill  the  baskets, 

Fill  the  baskets  there ! 
We're  the  guys 
That  serve  as  eyes 

Floating  in  the  air — 
Floating  in  the  seasick  air — 
High  above  the  waves ; 

If  we  wouldn't  be  for  you 
Glasses — didn't  see  for  you — 
You'd  be  in  your  graves ; 
You'd  be  underneath  the  sea, 

Swallowing  the  green. 
Entrees  for  the  fish  you'd  be, 

150 


TWO   HARD   JOBS  151 

Subbed  and  submarine; 
Down  among  the  sharks  you'd  go, 

Serving  bloody  wine, 
'Cause  your  transport  stubbed  its  toe 

On  a  German  mine. 
Well,  we'll  keep  you  safe,  I  guess ! 

Up  here  eating  cloud, 
We  are  just  a  little  less 

Than  the  angel  crowd. 
Cast  your  eye  upon  us 

When  you  say  a  prayer: 
We're  the  guys 
That  put  you  wise. — 
Pull  the  baskets. 
Pull  the  baskets. 

Pull  the  baskets  there ! 

— Hot-Dogs. 

The  first  thing  that  the  eastbound  transport  sees, 
after  it  has  been  met  by  our  destroyers,  is  the  low 
line  of  cliff  that  is  France;  the  next  thing  is  a  scat- 
tered group  of  dots  in  the  sky.  As  the  boats  draw 
nearer,  these  dots  assume  bulk;  they  begin  to  look 
like  kneeling  elephants  swaying  in  the  ether:  they 
are  the  observation-balloons  that  are  sent  out  daily 
to  scour,  with  their  tireless  eyes,  the  nearer  waters 
and  to  report  immediately  the  presence  of  every  sub- 
marine below  the  surface  and  every  doubtful  craft, 
or  craft  unaccounted  for,  above  it. 

The  observers  work  from  high-rimmed  baskets 
suspended  below  the  great  gas-bags;  the  balloons 
themselves  are  connected  with  their  stations  by 
cables — in  other  words,  they  are  what  are  called 
"captive-balloons" — and  the  operators  are  connected 


152  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

with  earth  by  traveling  telephones  or  radio,  or  both. 
Like  the  hydroaeroplanes,  the  balloons  make  it  pos- 
sible for  their  operators  to  see  far  below  the  surface 
of  the  water  over  which  they  float ;  they  are  less  ex- 
pensive than  the  flying-machines  and  can  remain  in 
air  much  longer ;  they  require  practically  no  mechan- 
ical skill  on  the  part  of  the  men  that  they  carry;  but 
their  field  of  operations  is  necessarily  more  limited, 
and  they  are  in  no  sense  engines  of  offense.  They 
are,  in  effect,  to  the  coast-guard  what  an  advanced 
observation-post  is  to  an  army  in  the  field. 

Compared  with  other  forms  of  air-activity  that 
of  the  man  who  goes  aloft  under  a  naval  observa- 
tion-balloon is  safe.  His  brother  operator,  hovering 
about  the  trenches  along  the  Marne  or  beyond  Toul, 
may  be  shot  down  by  a  shell  from  below  or  by  an 
aeroplane  from  above,  but  he  is  almost  never  sub- 
ject to  enemy-attack  and  is  practically  immune 
against  it.  He  flies  at  a  height  which  few  naval  guns 
are  constructed  to  attain  and  over  a  field  where  the 
German  is  operating  in  such  a  manner  that  his  sole 
desire  is  to  remain  hidden  at  every  moment  save 
those  connected  with  torpedo-launching. 

Nevertheless,  the  balloons  sometimes  achieve 
puncture,  on  their  own  account;  accidents — cause 
undetermined,  because  no  witness  survived — have 
resulted  in  fires ;  baskets  have  overtipped  in  storms, 
cables  have  severed  and  the  great  bags  drifted,  help- 
less, out  over  the  sea. 

Less  comfortable  work  than  that  of  the  observers 


TWO    HARD   JOBS  153 

it  is  difficult  to  imagine.  Elsewhere  in  this  book  I 
mention  the  purely  personal  fact  that  I  am  not — or 
never  have  been,  up  to  date — subject  to  seasickness, 
but  I  defy  any  man  that  is  new  to  it  to  ascend  in  one 
of  these  swaying  sky-trawlers  and  not  seriously  be- 
lieve, for  a  while,  that  his  digestive  organs  are  about 
to  play  him  tricks.  The  baskets,  large  as  they  seem 
when  they  are  pulled  up,  by  pulleys,  from  the  earth 
to  their  post  below  the  ready  gas-bag,  are  narrow 
and  cramped ;  a  dull,  steady  cold  settles  down  on  the 
observer  and  eats  into  his  vitals;  yet,  provided  by 
the  Base  with  information  as  to  the  appearance  and 
nature  of  every  ship  that  has  a  right  to  come,  during 
his  stay  in  the  air,  within  his  sight,  he  must  remain 
up,  frequently  from  sunrise  to  sunset,  and,  his  binoc- 
ulars glued  to  his  eyes,  take  turn  and  turn  about 
with  his  companion,  scouring  with  aching  vision  the 
level-seeming  surface  of  the  sea. 

Even  when  not  on  active  duty — if  you  can  call 
such  duty  "active" — the  life  of  the  balloonist  is 
scarcely  amusing.  His  station  is  generally  at  a 
distance  from  any  town,  and  his  existence  is  about 
as  lonely  as  that  of  a  shipwrecked  crew  on  a  coral- 
reef.  Mostly  his  chief  interest  is  in  writing  and 
reading  letters.  At  one  balloon-camp  that  I  visited 
one  out  of  every  three  men,  for  the  past  week,  had 
been  writing  home  to  his  wife,  who  hadn't  written 
him  for  a  month,  to  say  that  if  the  wife  let  another 
month  go  by  in  silence  she  would  not  get  her  allot- 
ment. 


\ 


154  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

"There  was  one  unmarried  fellow,"  continued  the 
censor  that  told  me  this,  "who  sent  a  note  to  his  girl; 
it  read  simply :  'Now  don't  be  a  durned  fool  and  get 
married  to  some  other  fellow  while  I'm  ^one.'  There 
was  another  whose  letter  consisted  of  exactly  eight 
words : 


(( ( 


Dear  Ethel : 

'Thank  you.     Don't  write  again. 

'Bob/ 


But  mostly  they  are  prolific  correspondents,  and  I 
am  a  bit  stumped  by  the  chaps  that  write  in  Yid- 
dish." 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed,  however,  that  these  men 
are  a  down-hearted  lot,  I  saw  a  boxing-match  that 
was  arranged  for  them  and  that  was  presided  over 
by  a  chaplain,  a  Catholic  priest,  whose  father  used 
to  be  a  well-known  railway  president  before  the  gov- 
ernment took  over  the  railways;  he  told  the  audi- 
ence at  the  start  that  there  must  be  no  malice  in  any 
of  its  comments  and  no  efforts  to  excite  the  per- 
formers to  anything  but  clean  sport:  whether  the 
admonition  was  needed  or  not  I  don't  know,  but  I 
never  saw  boxing  that  was  better  enjoyed,  and  the 
sole  remark  made  by  the  onlookers  at  the  only  slow 
bout  was  one  urging  the  hesitant  combatants  to 
"drop  a  nickel  in  the  piano-player." 

Once  I  talked  to  the  men  at  such  a  station.  I  was 
fresh  from  the  French  front  and  asked  them  what 


TWO    HARD    JOBS  155 

they  wanted  me  to  tell  them.  There  was  a  unani- 
mous answer : 

"Tell  us  when  we're  going  home !" 

I  was  a  bit  taken  aback.  I  said  that  they  were 
going  home  just  as  soon  as  we  had  whipped  the 
Kaiser. 

"You  wouldn't  want  to  go  home  before  that, 
would  you?"    I  inquired. 

The  shouted  "No!"  that  answered  me  shook  the 
rafters  of  the  shed. 

At  another  time,  with  a  group  of  these  men  that 
had  liberty,  I  was  to  ride  on  a  motor-truck  to  the 
Base-town.  Something  or  other  happened  to  the 
truck  as  we  gathered  around  it:  the  driver  said  so 
and  demurred  at  attempting  to  start. 

"You  got  four  wheels  an'  an  engine  left,  haven't 
you?"  the  men  demanded. 

The  driver  sullenly  owned  to  so  much. 

"Then  go !"  they  insisted. 

We  went.  We  went  singing.  We  went  like 
schoolboys  when  school  closes.  At  a  drawbridge 
before  the  entrance  to  the  city,  there  was  a  jam: 
quite  a  French  crowd  was  held  up  because  of  a  dis- 
pute, which  it  eagerly  took  part  in,  between  the  po- 
liceman on  guard  and  two  carters,  each  of  whom 
vociferously  claimed  it  as  his  right  to  cross  that 
bridge  first.  In  France,  a  policeman  always  argues 
before  he  arrests;  he  argues  regardless  of  the  fact 
that  he  has  previously  determined  just  what  course 
of  action  to  pursue.  Our  fellows  for  a  while  watched 


156  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

this  particular  argument — they  knew  no  French, 
and  so  couldn't  properly  be  said  to  be  listening  to  it 
— with  huge  enjoyment.  Then  they  began  to  realize 
that  the  minutes  of  their  precious  liberty  were  slip- 
ping away. 

"Hey!"  called  one  of  them.  "Don't  you  people 
know  you're  holding  up  this  war?" 

A  negro  stevedore  appeared  from  nowhere — how 
he  got  out  of  his  cantonment  I  should  not  like  to 
say — and  he,  acting  as  interpreter,  had  a  way  cleared 
for  these  Americans,  who,  he  said,  were  "on  im- 
portant military  business."  He  came  from  New  Or- 
leans, that  fellow,  and  he  spoke  a  bit  of  old  Creole 
French. 

2.     Shut-Ins 


That  Kaiser-man,  Ah'm  tellin'  you, 
He's  des'  the  devil's  double ; 

Ah  guess  he's  never  seen  me,  but 
He  sure  has  caused  me  trouble  : 

Ah  thought  Ah'd  come  to  France  to  fight 
An'  let  him  have  a  clip — 

An'  what  you  think  they  set  me  to  ? 
Unloadin  ship! 

There's  somepin'  ailin'  in  ma  haid : 

Ah  never  was  a  rover. 
Ma  job  was  good — ef  Ah  warn't  cracked 

Ah'd  never  have  come  over ; 
Ah'm  sleepiii'  in  the  open  here, 

Ah'm  (loin'  'thout  ma  fun. 
Ah'm  kerryin'  tons  o'  delayed  freight — 
Why  not  a  gun? 


TWO    HARD    JOBS  157. 

Ah  didn't  lak  the  ocean  much — 

That  sub-yarn  ain't  no  jolly — 
En  Ah'm  goin'  to  ast  th'  Culnel  fer 

To  send  me  home  by  trolley: 
Ah  don't  mind  workin'  every  day, 

Er  workin'  every  night, 
But,  bein'  bawn  a  fightin'-man, 
Ah'd  like  to  fight. 

— Stevedores. 

Perhaps,  strictly  speaking,  those  stevedores — 
they  seem  to  be  all  negroes — have  no  place  in  a 
book  about  the  Navy.  Strictly  speaking,  at  all  events, 
the  Navy  is  not  responsible  for  them :  they  do  not 
belong  to  it;  they  belong  to  the  Army.  Of  old,  our 
transports  were  an  Army  care;  when  a  long  and 
tedious  array  of  complaints  resulted  in  the  shifting 
of  that  marine  burden  to  the  shoulders  of  the  Navy 
Department,  which  were  in  the  nature  of  things 
better  fitted  to  bear  it,  the  stevedores,  -through  some 
oversight,  did  not  go  along;  but,  since  they  had  to 
unload  stores  from  Navy-controlled  boats  for  trans- 
fer upon  Army-controlled  railway  trains,  they  came, 
while  so  employed,  to  form  a  sort  of  link  between 
the  two  branches  of  the  service,  and  so  they  are  now 
doing  a  formidable  part  of  America's  work  along 
the  French  coast,  concerning  which  work  as  a  whole 
no  book  would  be  complete  without  some  mention 
of  them. 

Primarily,  then,  their  duty  is  the  hauling  ashore 
of  pretty  much  everything,  except  the  soldiers, 
which  our  ships  bring  abroad,  but  generally  con- 


158  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

fused  with  them  are  vast  numbers  of  other  men  of 
their  race  who  are  now  drafted,  again  enhsted  vol- 
unteers and  yet  again  hired  contract-labourers.  So 
far  they  have  not,  as  any  Army  officer  put  it  to  me, 
"mixed  well" :  those  in  one  sort  of  work  are  suffi- 
ciently human  to  look  down  on  those  in  another 
sort;  the  "reg'lars"  expect  the  "contract-trash"  to 
defer  to  them;  the  southern  negroes  do  not  care  for 
those  from  northern  states,  declaring  that  the  latter 
"ain't  real  niggers,  nohow,"  and  those  from  the 
northern  states  sometimes  assume  an  air  of  superior- 
ity that  aggravates  their  fellows.  There  have,  con- 
sequently, been  some  rather  lively  battles,  and  the 
issue  is  not  yet  determined. 

Herbert  Corey  told  me  of  one  encounter  that  he 
witnessed  between  a  labourer  from  New  Orleans 
and  a  stevedore  from  New  York.  When  the  fight 
was  over,  its  volunteer  referee  sent  for  the  New 
Yorker's  brother,  who  was  working  near  by. 

"Now,"  said  the  referee,  "right  hyere's  the  two 
ov  'um.  Pick  'um  out  to  suit  yo'self.  Which  is  yo' 
brother  en  which  is  t'other'n?" 

At  that  French  port  at  which  we  are  constructing 
our  largest  docks,  an  Army  man,  an  officer  of  En- 
gineers, complained  bitterly : 

"In  one  ship,"  he  told  me,  "we  had  six  hundred 
of  the  stevedores  sent  over  here  without  any  hospital 
corps  and  without  any  doctor;  you  can't  imagine  the 
condition  those  poor  fellows  were  in.  Taking  all 
our  negro  labourers  in  a  bunch,  it  is  safe  to  say  that 


TWO   HARD   JOBS  159 

fifty  per  cent,  are  physically  unfit.  They  are  un- 
suited  to  this  climate  and  go  down  easily  before 
pneumonia  and  tuberculosis ;  hundreds  of  them  are 
all  the  while  laid  up  from  work  by  minor  ills,  espe- 
cially rheumatism;  many  contracted  diseases  coming 
over;  more  were  in  bad  shape  when  they  left  home. 
We  ship  from  three  to  twelve  negroes  daily  to  Base- 
hospitals,  and  when  a  fellow  is  sent  to  a  Base- 
hospital  it  means  that  he  is  a  very  sick  man.  Out  of 
fifteen  hundred  drafted  negroes  assigned  to  us  as 
labourers,  a  large  proportion  either  had  phthisis  or 
was  in  a  late  state  of  a  social  disease  when  they  got 
here.  Others  got  in  as  bad  a  state  because  we 
couldn't  keep  them  out  of  the  longshore  cafes.  The 
net  result  was  that,  right  at  the  start,  four  times  as 
many  stakes  were  driven  daily  by  our  own  enlisted 
men  of  the  Engineers  as  by  the  same  number  of 
outside  labourers  on  the  same  job." 

One  remedy  to  mere  slackness,  thus  far  only  im- 
perfectly tried,  but  consistently  efficacious,  has  been 
the  enlisting  of  the  contract-labourers.  As  soon  as 
one  of  them  gets  into  a  uniform,  his  bearing  and  his 
work  alike  improve;  he  is,  as  he  would  say,  "better 
behaved,"  and  his  health  improves  accordingly.  I 
heard  one  man,  whose  betterment  was  scarcely 
twenty-four  hours  old,  accosted  by  an  unregenerate 
that,  a  day  previous,  had  been  his  bosom  friend.  The 
uniformed  personage  gazed  with  scorn  at  his  slouch- 
ing interrogator. 

"What's  that?"  he  demanded.     "Git  away,  nig- 


160  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

ger.  Ah  wouldn't  be  seen  on  the  street  wif  yo'. 
Ain't  yo'  seen  these  here  black  French  sojers  from 
Africa  what  dresses  in  sheets?     Tha's  what  yo' 

look  lak  :  yo'  look  lak  a A-rab!  Yo'  clo's 

is  aflappin'  lak  a  shirt  on  a  fence  washdays." 

He  was  tremendous,  this  scoffer,  a  veritable  giant. 
A  few  mornings  later,  I  saw  him  crossing  the  big  city 
square.  Somehow  or  other,  he  had  evidently  been 
detailed  to  conduct  a  prisoner,  a  German  officer, 
from  one  part  of  the  city  to  another.  The  officer 
was  perhaps  just  arrived  from  a  distant  prison 
camp ;  anyhow,  he  had  a  large  box  with  him,  almost 
the  size  of  an  old-fashioned  Saratoga  trunk.  It  was 
a  hot  day,  the  officer  was  a  little  man  and  fat;  but 
it  was  he,  and  not  the  giant,  who  shouldered  that 
box. 

Once  I  saw  him  falter  and  appeal  to  his  guard. 
Would  the  latter  carry  the  box?  The  latter  would 
not.  The  most  that  he  would  do  was  to  permit  a 
brief  rest.  On  the  German's  part,  there  was  a  pock- 
etward  movement  of  the  hand  that  indicated  the 
proffer  of  a  fee,  but  the  response  was  a  refusal  and 
a  peremptory  punishment  in  the  shape  of  an  order  to 
march  on:  the  erect  negro  in  Uncle  Sam's  uniform 
was  not  to  be  hired  to  carry  luggage  for  a  Boche 
prisoner. 

At  our  Naval  Base,  the  soldiery  have  attempted  to 
solve  the  problem  of  the  negro's  exuberance  by  for- 
bidding him  the  town.     He  has  to  work,  by  day 


TWO   HARD   JOBS  161 

shift  or  night,  on  the  docks,  and  to  sleep  there,  too. 
He  may  not  leave  them;  he  is  confined  within  a 
stout,  high,  well-guarded  stockade.  It  is  a  rather 
mournful  life  and  one  that  no  unprejudiced  ob- 
server can  not  help  wishing  to  see  bettered.  I  was 
informed  of  it  when  speaking  in  a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  hut 
inside  the  railings,  of  the  meaning  of  which  railings 
I  was  then  ignorant.  I  was  looking  out  on  a  sea  of 
sad,  black  faces,  and  I  made  what  must  have  seemed 
a  foolish  appeal  to  my  hearers  to  be  good  boys  when- 
ever they  went  into  town.  Instantly,  a  wailing 
chorus  interrupted  me : 

"Don'  yo'  be  afraid  o'  that,  Mister.  They  won't 
let  us  go  outen  th'  yard!'' 

It  was  one  of  these  working  captives  from  Amer- 
ica that  consulted  an  Army  doctor  with  the  com- 
plaint that  "sompin's  the  matter  wif  ma  haid." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  asked  the  doctor.  "Got  a 
knock  on  it  ?"' 

"No,  suh;  I  ain't  had  no  knock  on  it;  ain't  been 
a  fight  fo'  nios'  a  week  now." 

"Headache,  then?" 

"No,  suh;  but  dey's  sompin'  wrong  wif  it." 

"Mean  you  have  earache?" 

"No,  suh.    Ah — Ah  mean — " 

"Well,  it  can't  be  that  your  eyes  are  troubling 
you?" 

"No,  't  ain't  ma  eyes,  suh ;  but  dey  sure  is  sompin' 
wrong  wif  ma  haid." 


162  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

"Then,  for  Heaven's  sake,  tell  me  your  symp- 
toms!" 

"Symtims?  Yas,  suh.  Ah  got  a  lot  o'  symtims. 
Yo'  see,  doctor,  it  was  dis  here  away.  Ah  had  a 
soft  snap  back  home.  Ah  had  a  wife  that  was  a 
good  pervider,  an'  Ah  was  mighty  fond  o'  that 
woman,  an'  she  was  real'  in  love  wif  me;  an'  Ah 
had  a  nice  house;  an'  Ah  had  a  good  job  up  Baton 
Rouge  way.  Ah  didn't  have  nuffin'  to  complain 
'bout,  yit  Ah  done  come  over  here.  So  dere  must 
be  sompin'  wrong  wif  ma  haid,  doctor,  else  Ah 
wouldn't  never've  come  over  here." 

He  wanted  to  be  sent  home  as  mentally  unfit.  He 
said  he  would  rather  be  allowed  to  go  to  the  front 
and  fight  for  his  country  than  go  home,  but,  failing 
a  chance  to  carry  a  gun,  he  wanted  to  return  to 
Baton  Rouge. 

He  was  not  alone  in  this  attitude.  I  heard  one  of 
his  comrades  sighing : 

"Ah  guess  Ah  ain't  never  goin'  to  git  a  chance  so 
much  as  to  see  that  there  Kaiser-man,  an'  Ah  guess 
he  ain't  never  so  much  as  caught  sight  o'  me ;  but  he 
sure  has  caused  me  a  lot  o'  trouble." 

"Me,  too,"  a  negro  that  was  with  the  worried  one 
agreed.  "An'  another  thing:  Ah've  'bout  enough 
o'  them  sub-scares,  comin'  over;  when  my  contrac' 
done  run  out.  Ah  ain't  goin'  home  by  no  ocean,  Ah 
ain't ;  Ah'm  goin'  to  ast  f er  transportation  b'way  o' 
New  Orleans" 
Among  them  all,  the  happiest  are  the  worthless. 


TWO   HARD   JOBS  163 

At  the  Base-port,  there  was  one  of  these  that  was  a 
proficient  beggar :  he  would  have  done  credit  to  pre- 
war Algiers.  No  white  man  could  pass  through  the 
stockade  while  Jerry  was  there  without  surrendering 
something  to  Jerry.  If  the  visitor  had  no  money,  he 
would  soon  find  himself  parting  with  a  portion  of 
his  clothing.  Indeed,  there  were  times  when  Jerry 
preferred  clothes :  one  could  toss  them  over  the 
stockade  to  a  second-hand  clothes  shop's  runner 
waiting  there ;  the  runner  would  pay  at  least  a  third 
of  what  he  would  himself  get  for  them,  and  that 
was  often  more  than  the  visitor  would  feel  inclined 
to  donate  in  the  way  of  hard  cash. 

On  one  winter's  morning,  Jerry  approached  two 
visiting  strangers,  one  of  whom  was  an  Army  offi- 
cer, magnificently  muffled  to  the  chin  in  an  overcoat 
that  was  as  new  as  overcoats  ever  are  in  a  wartime 
army.  The  other  man,  a  civilian,  wore  a  very  or- 
dinary overcoat  indeed,  but  it  was  at  its  sleeve  that 
Jerry  covertly  plucked. 

"Ah  don't  wan'  that  man  fo'  to  hear  me,"  whis- 
pered Jerry,  "  'cause  he's  one  o'  them  officer- fellows, 
an'  they're  mighty  hard-hearted,  them  officers. 
'Sides,  he's  from  the  Souf,  he  is,  an'  them  southe'n 
men,  they  always  is  'spicious." 

The  officer  was  a  southerner,  but  the  civilian 
wondered  how  Jerry  could  know  that. 

"  'Cause  Ah'm  from  the  Souf  mysef,"  said  Jerry. 
"An'  now,  Mister,  Ah  jes'  gotta  tell  you'  how  awful 
near  frozen  to  def  Ah  am." 


164  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

Jerry  did  look  cold.  Undoubtedly  he  was  cold. 
Whether  he  would  have  worn  it  had  he  had  one  is 
questionable,  but  what  he  proceeded  to  beg  for  was 
the  civilian's  overcoat. 

"It's  too  shabby  fo'  a  man  o'  yo'  position,  any- 
how," said  Jerry. 

At  that  moment  the  officer,  who  had  been  momen- 
tarily otherwise  engaged,  heard  the  beggar  and 
wheeled  upon  him. 

"Why,  you  blank-blank,  good-for-nothing,  low- 
down  nigger !"  he  shouted.  "What  do  you  mean  by 
asking  this  gentleman  for  his  overcoat?  We 
wouldn't  think  of  giving  you  anything.  If  you  don't 
clear  out  this  instant,  I'll  tan  the  hide  off  you  1" 

Not  even  for  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  did  Jerry 
show  the  terror  that  he  must  have  felt.  He  turned 
to  the  officer  with  his  face  broken  by  the  best  imag- 
inable imitation  of  a  glad  grin.  He  doffed  his  hat; 
it  nearly  brushed  the  ground  beside  his  broken  boots. 

"Mawnin',  suh,"  he  cried.  "Mawnin' !  An',  oh, 
bress  de  Lawd,  Ah  sure  am  glad  to  see  you!  Ah 
thought  yo'  was  a  southe'n  gen'man  the  minute  Ah 
sot  eyes  on  yo',  an'  hearin'  yo'  talk  lake  that  to  me 
makes  me  sure  of  it.  It  makes  me  plum  homesick, 
suh.    Now  Ah  knows  Ah'll  git  a'  overcoat !" 

And  he  was  right.  In  three  minutes,  he  had,  not 
the  northern  civilian's,  but  the  southern  officer's 
overcoat  across  his  arm  and  was  sidling  toward  the 
stockade  behind  which  the  second-hand  clothes 
shop's  runner  was  waiting. 


TWO   HARD   JOBS  •  165 

"I  needed  a  new  one,  anyhow,"  the  officer  ex- 
plained. 

Jerry,  however,  is  an  exception.  Being  a  genius, 
he  is  of  course  an  exception.  Most  of  his  comrades 
have  anything  but  an  easy  time  of  it.  Many  of 
them  that  are  enhsted  say  that  they  enhsted  under 
the  delusion  that  they  were  to  be  used  as  soldiers  and 
fighting  men.  It  is  hard  to  make  them  realize  their 
present  work's  great  importance.  They  hear  the 
true  stories  of  the  splendid  battles  that  the  colored 
troops  are  waging  on  the  western  front,  and  their 
loudest  plaint  is  contained  in  the  words  that  I  heard 
over  and  over  again : 

"Ah  want  to  fight!" 


Sailin'  in  a  yellin'  yawl, 
Duckin'  through  the  sea, 

Mostly  Phippsburg  dorymen 
makin'  up  the  gang; 
Channel-this  and  channel-that, 
Sweep  the  roadway  free; 
Set  the  drag, 
An'  sing  a  rag. 

An'  keep  your  eye  peeled — 
BANG! 


There's  a  sub-egg  busted; 

Don't  you  put  about! 
What?  She's  drinkin'  for'ard? 

Bale  her  out — bale  her  out! 

Draggin'  through  the  nigger  night 
An'  the  dirty  day, 
Eyes  a-ache  an' 
Hearts  a-breakin' 
Wet  an'  frozen  stiff, 
Long  as  any  ship's  afloat 
We  must  clear  the  way 
Into  France 
An'  take  a  chance 
Till  they  get  us — 
BIFF! 

Watch  your  helm  there!  Steady! 
Smell  the  sauerkraut? 

Never  mind 

To  look  behind! 
Bale  her  out — bale  her  out! 


Here's  our  simple  orders: 
"Go  an'  git  the  mines" — 
Nothin'  'bout  supplies  an'  such 
(zvinch,  or  sail,  or  pump) ; 
Only  doctrine's  "Hunt  'em  out 
Where  zve  see  the  signs; 
Go,  you  mut, 
An'  hurry,  but 

Be  ready  for  a — " 

JUMP!     .     .    , 

Right  her! — All  together! 

She's  a  tidy  tout: 
We  kin  git  to  harbour — 

Bale  her  out! 

— Mine-Sweepers. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  BLOW-UP  MEN  AND  A  MEND-UP  MOTHER 

A  FEW  years  ago,  I  passed  a  summer  at  as 
lonely  a  place  on  the  Maine  coast  as  it  was 
then  possible  for  me  to  discover.  Heavily  wooded 
hills  that  were  very  nearly  mountains  came  down  to 
the  wild  sea;  American  eagles  nested  in  the  forest 
across  the  inlet's  mouth;  mild-eyed  deer  ambled 
down  the  track  that  I  had  been  told  was  a  road; 
within  a  radius  of  twelve  miles  there  were  not 
enough  inhabitants  to  maintain  more  than  two 
churches  and  three  speakeasies;  and  both  churches 
and  all  the  speakeasies  were  impartially  patronized 
by  my  friend  Habakkuk  Rodgers. 

Habakkuk  Rodgers  was  not  his  real  name,  but 
his  real  name  was  so  like  that  that  "Habakkuk 
Rodgers"  is  no  exaggeration.  When  he  couldn't 
help  it,  he  would  go  to  Phippsburg  and  build  dories ; 
the  rest  of  the  time  he  lived  in  a  tumbledown  cabin 
on  a  cliff  beside  the  sea  and  went  fishing,  I  suspect 
that  he  also  robbed  lobster-pots,  and  I  know  that  he 
regarded  but  lightly  the  federal  regulations  pre- 
scribing what  size  lobsters  it  is  proper  to  consume. 
Any  language  save  that  which  he  called  "American" 

168 


THE   BLOW-UP   AND    MEND-UP     169 

he  considered  as  an  infernal  survival  of  the  affair  at 
Babel,  and  he  sometimes  expressed  grave  doubts  as 
to  whether  such  survivals  were  a  reality.  He  disbe- 
lieved in  women  and  in  travel. 

"Women,"  he  would  say,  "are  a  invention  of  the 
devil.  That's  what  I  hold.  Satan,  he  got  Eve  in 
his  power  by  eatin'  the  apple,  an'  then  she  had  to 
pass  into  the  serpent,  an'  the  devil  he  passed  into  the 
bein'  of  Eve.  You  look  at  the  Book,  an'  you'll  see 
f r  yourself.  It  says  there  how  Satan  said,  'Ye 
shall  not  surely  die,' — just  transfer.  So  they  trans- 
ferred, and  seems  t'  me  the  change  was  hard  on  the 
serpent  an'  an  improvement  to  Eve. 

"Travel?  No,  sir.  Sometimes  I  go  to  Bath  an' 
sometimes  I  gotta  go  to  Phippsburg.  But  I  don't 
hold  by  travel.  Where  the  Lord  puts  you,  He  means 
for  you  to  stay  put,  else  He  wouldn't  never  have  put 
you  there.  You  look  in  the  Book.  It  says:  'AH 
these  people  shall  also  go  to  their  place.'     Nothin' 

'bout  comin'  away.     *Go'  an'  stick.     That's 

what  the  Book  says." 

Thus  Habakkuk  Rodgers  a  few  years  since.  Yet, 
one  April  afternoon  of  the  present  year,  I  entered 
the  bar-room  of  a  port-side  cafe  along  the  coast  of 
France  and  saw  there  this  same  Habakkuk  in  famil- 
iar converse  with  the  proprietress.  What  is  more, 
by  means  of  something  that  he  patently  considered 
the  Gallic  tongue,  he  was  making  himself  under- 
stood. 

He  wasn't  a  bit  discomposed  when  he  recognized 


170  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

me.  He  explained  that  a  transatlantic  journey  was 
made  permissible  by  that  clause  in  the  body  of  our 
law  which  declares  the  suspension  of  all  Constitu- 
tional guarantees  in  time  of  war;  he  accounted  for 
his  talk  and  its  feminine  participant  by  a  reference  to 
the  second  verse  of  the  sixth  chapter  of  Genesis,  and 
he  closed  the  entire  subject  of  his  part  in  the  war  with 
a  splendidly  bloodthirsty  Old  Testament  quotation 
about  the  duty  of  the  elect  to  annihilate  the  men, 
women  and  children  of  God's  enemies.  Habakkuk 
Rodgers  was  one  of  an  American  crew  manning  a 
mine-sweeper  under  the  command  of  our  Naval 
Forces  in  French  Waters. 

Enough  has,  surely,  been  elsewhere  written  about 
sea-mines  and  their  nature.  "Since,"  says  Mr.  Kip- 
ling, "this  most  Christian  war  includes  laying  mines 
in  the  fairways  of  traffic,  and  since  these  mines  may 
be  laid  at  any  time  by  German  submarines  especially 
built  for  the  work,  or  by  neutral  ships,  all  fairways 
must  be  swept  continuously  day  and  night.  When 
a  nest  of  mines  is  reported,  traffic  must  be  hung  up 
or  deviated  till  it  is  cleared  out."  For  that  purpose, 
we  have  taken  to  France  hundreds  of  fisherman 
from  Maine  and  little  boatmen — and  especially  tug- 
men — from  Long  Island  Sound,  and  of  these  became 
Habakkuk. 

They  crossed  in  their  own  tiny  boats — boats 
that  nobody  had  ever  before  supposed  could  venture 
safely  so  far  to  sea.  They  were  under  the  guard  of 
flanking  destroyers  and  were  cared  for  by  a  floating 


THE   BLOW-UP   AND    MEND-UP     171 

repair-ship  called  the  mother-ship  about  which  they 
would  cluster,  during  a  submarine-scare,  as  lately- 
hatched  chickens  cluster  under  the  wings  of  their 
parent  hen.  But  they  were  independent  individuals 
for  all  that,  and,  once  they  had  reported  at  the  Base, 
they  became  not  the  least  important  of  those  powers 
which  kept  the  sea  highroad  clear  for  the  transport 
of  our  men,  munitions  and  supplies. 

At  perhaps  a  score  of  places  along  the  coast, 
groups  of  these  boats,  and  their  crews,  are  stationed. 
One  is  tempted  to  quote  Kipling  again,  for,  though 
he  is  describing  a  British  group,  his  picture  might 
almost  be  the  picture  of  an  American :  "Now,  imag- 
ine the  acreage  of  several  dock-basins  crammed, 
gunwale  to  gunwale,  with  brown  and  umber  and 
ochre  and  rust-red  steam-trawlers,  tugs,  harbour- 
boats  .  .  .  once  clean  and  respectable,  now  dirty 
and  happy.  Throw  in  fish-steamers,  surprise-pack- 
ets, of  unknown  lines,  and  indescribable  junks." 
Something  like  that  is  what  you  will  see  when  you 
see  a  group  of  our  mine-sweeps  in  port.  You  will 
see  many  a  little  craft  that  used  to  tow  your  liner  to 
the  New  York  docks,  and  you  may  miss  from  the 
harbour  of  New  York  many  a  little  craft  that  now 
is  doing  dangerous  war-work  in  France.  So  soon 
as  a  new  mine-field  is  discovered,  word  of  it  is  sent 
by  radio  to  the  Base;  it  is  marked  on  the  charts  and 
the  information  transmitted  to  all  Allied  and  neutral 
ships  known  to  be  near,  and  then  the  orders  go  forth 
to  the  closest  mine-sweeps,  and  the  tiny  mine-sweeps 


172  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

must  imperturbably  proceed  into  the  midst  of  that 
nest  of  sea-hornets  and,  one  by  one,  explode  them. 

There  are  various  methods  of  sweeping.  One  the 
British  prefer;  another  the  ItaHans;  we  are  working 
on  a  plan  of  our  own,  but  have  meanwhile  found 
the  French  excellent,  and  what  may  well  prove  the 
best  scheme  of  all  is  now  nearing  perfection  at  the 
hands  of  its  Parisian  inventor,  Captain  Tossizza, 
Ingcnieur  de  la  Marine. 

Into  details  it  is  inadvisable  to  go ;  but,  speaking 
roughly  and  broadly,  the  fundamental  idea  on  which 
all  these  methods  are  based  is  that  of  two  small  boats 
sailing  slowly  abreast  and  each  carrying  an  end  of  a 
wire  or  cable  that  passes  under  the  water  at  such 
a  depth  as  to  catch  some  part  or  other  of  the  mine. 
There  are  those  who  advocate  the  attachment  to  this 
cable  of  blades,  sharp  and  tough,  which  will  sever 
the  strand  connecting  the  mine  with  its  buoy  and  so 
let  it  sink,  of  its  own  weight,  to  harmless  rest  upon 
the  bottom  of  the  ocean;  there  are  other  sweepers, 
men  of  intellects  more  simple  and  direct,  who  use 
their  cables  to  drag  the  mine  to  the  surface  and  then 
explode  the  devilish  device  by  making  it  the  target 
for  their  heavy  rifle  practise;  and  between  the  ex- 
tremes of  these  two  schools  there  are  all  manner  and 
shades  of  false  doctrine,  heresy  and  schism. 

In  any  case,  the  work  is  one  in  which  the  raw 
material  is  death.  It  is  all  very  well  to  say  that  the 
cables  catch  the  mines:  they  catch  the  mines  that 
happen  to  be  between  the  boats;  for  such  mines  as 
happen  to  be  directly  in  the  course  of  the  boats  those 


THE    BLOW-UP    AND    MEND-UP     173 

boats  must  keep  the  sharpest  lookout,  or  there  is  an 
end  of  things. 

"Suppose  you  strike  a  mine?"  I  asked  a  former 
Long  Island  tugboat-captain. 

He  had  learned  enough  French  to  shrug  his 
shoulders ;  he  shrugged  them  now. 

''Oh,  well,"  he  drawled,  "you'd  never  know  it. 
The  first  thing  you'd  know,  you  wouldn't  know 
nothin'." 

Another  commander  told  me  this  story : 

"Funniest  thing  happened  last  trip  out.  Ugly,  o' 
course,  but  funny  fit  to  kill.  My  mate — a  man's 
mate's  the  fellow  that  commands  the  tug  that  holds 
the  other  end  of  his  sweep — my  mate  was  my  broth- 
er-in-law, so  to  speak.  Henery,  his  name  was;  an' 
Henery  bein'  older'n  me,  an'  havin'  married  the 
older  sister  o'  my  wife,  he  was  always  kind  o'  puttin' 
hisself  above  me.  We  was  good  friends,  you  under- 
stand. We'd  worked  together,  back  home,  fer  some- 
thin'  like  twenty  year,  an'  Henery  was  the  best 
friend  I  had  anywheres.  Still,  he  was  always  pridin' 
himself  on  knowin'  a  bit  more'n  me.  It  was  him 
learned  me  the  tug  business,  an'  he  never  could  think 
o'  me  'cept  as  a  ig'orant  beginner.  He  was  espe- 
^cially  proud  o'  his  sea-sight  an'  especially  con- 
tempt'us  o'  mine. 

"Well,  we  was  sent  out  to  sweep  a  new  field,  ten 
mile'  down  the  coast.  It  was  a  place  as  had  always 
been  clear  afore,  but  this  time  the  Germans  'd  got 
in  an'  laid  a  dickens  of  a  lot  of  sub-eggs  there. 

"Water  was  kind  o'  rough,  an'  we  was  pitchin' 


174  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

consid'ble.  I  was  standin'  for'ard,  keepin'  an  eye 
out  for  mines  ahead  o'  my  tug,  an'  Henery,  he  was 
standin'  for'ard  aboard  his'n  for  the  same  purpose. 
All  the  time,  he  kep'  warnin'  me  to  be  more  careful. 

"  'You  glue  your  eyes  on  the  water !'  he  was  al- 
ways yellin',  'Don't  have  to  look  at  me  when  you 
talk.  Keep  your  fool  eyes  on  the  water,  or  you'll 
get  blowed  up,  that's  what'll  happen  to  you,  sonny,' 
says  he. 

"It  kind  o'  got  on  my  nerves,  that  did.  I  had  a 
good  mind  to  sass  him  back,  times.  Sort  o'  glad  I 
didn't,  now. 

"Well,  bye  an'  bye,  havin'  knifed  about  three — 
mebbe  four — mines  with  the  sweeps,  we  was  goin' 
along  in  the  thick  o'  the  nest,  when  all  to  once  Hen- 
ery, he  yells  fit  to  bust  a  lung : 

"  'Look  out !  Look  out !  You  blank-blank  fool, 
where  be  your  eyes?  Port  your  helm!  There's  a 
mine  dead  ahead  o'  you !  Didn't  I  tell  you  to  watch 
where  you  was  goin'  ?' 

"An' — d'you  know? — he  hadn't  no  more'n  got 
done  the  last  word  o'  cussin'  me  out  when — bang ! — 
his  own  tug  hits  a  mine  an's  blowed  to  smithereens. 

"That  was  five  days  ago.  They  ain't  found  Hen- 
ery yet.  Don't  quite  know  how'll  tell  my  wife's  sis- 
ter :  she'll  think  Henery  was  keerless.  It  was  ugly, 
o'  course,  but  funny  fit  to  kill." 

I  have  said  that  these  tugs  came  over  under  the 
wings  of  a  mother-ship:  I  wish  that  space  would 
permit  an  adequate  description  of  the  ship  that  is 


Sea-eggs  laid  by  the  Germans 


o 

a 

H 


*  '    I 


THE   BLOW-UP   AND    MEND-UP     175 

now  their  mother  in  port — and  is,  at  the  same  time, 
mother  to  all  the  other  craft  of  our  Navy  operating 
in  French  waters.  Even  the  barest  possible  mention 
of  that  wonderful  vessel  will,  I  fear,  take  up  a 
goodly  portion  of  a  chapter  that  began  by  being  a 
chapter  about  mine-sweeps. 

She  is  a  former  collier,  this  mother-ship — 12,800 
tons  and  467  feet  over  all.  For  two  months  of  her 
long  life  she  was  base  ship  at  a  target-range ;  she  was 
three  years  and  four  months  at  the  Boston  Navy 
Yard,  and  now,  carrying  four  five-inch  guns,  she  is 
just  enough  of  a  battle-ship  to  protect  herself.  At 
sea,  she  has  a  mighty  roll,  but  she  is  what  they  call 
in  the  Navy  a  "good  goer,"  and  her  towing  appa- 
ratus is  the  best  we  have  thus  far  produced. 

"She  could  tow  the  Leviathan,"  her  commander 
proudly  told  me,  and  the  Leviathan's  clumsy  bulk 
recalled  the  name  of  Germany's  greatest  liner. 

Once  the  mother  of  sixteen  fighters,  she  mothered 
at  Bermuda,  forty-eight  craft — American,  British, 
French — of  nearly  every  known  war-type.  She  set 
out  for  France  in  February  last,  dragging  three  dis- 
abled armed  yachts  and  a  British  drifter  behind  her 
and  surrounded — for  she  was  too  valuable  to  lose — 
by  a  little  fleet  of  destroyers.  Now  she  rests  well 
within  the  Base-harbour,  but  she  can  go  out  if  need 
be,  and  not  a  few  of  her  complement  dream  of  a  day 
when  she  will  do  so. 

Her  mission  is  to  keep  in  condition  everything 
that  the  forces  at  the  French  Base  need  in  their  day's 


176  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

work.  There  is  an  average  of  eight  vessels  always 
nestling  under  her  wings,  undergoing  repairs.  Be- 
side her  is  her  subsidiary  corps  of  assistants:  a 
squadron  of  tugs  that  will  tow  in  injured  vessels,  or 
carry  mechanics  and  tools  to  mend  such  vessels  at 
sea. 

I  remember  going  out  to  her  in  the  Admiral's 
launch  and  noting  how  tremendous  she  seemed  amid 
the  clustering  destroyers  and  armed  yachts.  Her 
sides  were  flung  open  to  make  more  easy  the  en- 
trance of  battered  machinery,  yet  her  decks — the 
topmost  crowded  with  huge  cranes — were  as  clean 
as  if  she  were  not  a  floating  machine-shop,  but  a 
model  cannery  somewhere  ashore.  A  number  of 
French  naval  officers  were  aboard,  making  drawings 
of  the  things  they  saw  in  order  to  reproduce  them 
for  their  own  navy;  an  English  naval  lieutenant  was 
with  them : 

"France  has  one  dismantled  warship  to  do  this 
sort  of  work,"  said  he,  nodding  at  the  mother-ship's 
bridge  by  way  of  including  all  her  activities.  "As 
for  us,  we've  got  a  few  rather  marvelous  boats  built 
to  pull  up  a  sunken  sub,  and  we  keep  a  few  repair- 
craft  working.  But,  by  jove,  we've  got  nothing  that 
compares  with  this  girl — absolutely  nothing." 

So  far,  indeed,  this  mother-ship  is  incomparable. 
"She  can  make  anything  but  steel  castings,"  said  one 
of  her  officers,  "and  she  can  weld  one  of  those  when 
it's  brought  in  broken."  She  has  her  own  carpenter 
shop,  metalographic-shop,  electric  plant,  a  refriger- 


THE    BLOW-UP    AND    MEND-UP     177 

ating  outfit  and  a  still  that  manages  4,100  gallons  of 
water  every  day. 

Primarily,  of  course,  she  is  just  something  that 
floats  built  around  an  iron-works,  the  walls  of  a  ship 
surrounding  two  great  iron  decks,  the  top  one  only 
a  huge  balcony  that  circles  the  lower.  Below,  a  fur- 
nace is  in  blast;  men  are  carrying  out  a  big  tub  of 
molten  metal  where  from  fly  sparks  as  from  a  dozen 
Roman-candles.  All  about  are  the  forge  and  smithy, 
drills  and  drill-presses,  metal  saws  that  bite  through 
iron  bars  as  if  they  were  so  much  wood,  repair-shops 
for  the  curing  of  every  sort  of  sick  tool.  Between 
binoculars  with  a  broken  lens  and  a  splintered  piece 
of  eighteen-inch  steam-pipe,  there  is  nothing  that 
can't  be  here  again  made  usable.  Injured  radio 
outfits  are  put  into  shape,  pumps  and  valves  are 
made  and  remade,  wheels  milled,  engines  "lined 
up." 

I  saw  a  one-ton  casting  of  brass  made  here  and  a 
similar  casting  of  iron;  I  saw  the  very  nature  of 
guns  changed  in  a  few  hours,  and  once,  going  out 
with  one  of  the  mother-ship's  tugs,  I  saw  a  gang  of 
her  men  place  the  torpedo-tubes  in  a  destroyer  at 
sea  and  install  a  set  of  depth-charge  chutes — all  in 
one  day. 

Every  transport  that  limps  into  that  harbour  car- 
ries its  troubles  to  this  lady-doctor.  When  some- 
body needed  sirens  and  was  told  that  there  was 
none  left  in  France,  the  mother-ship  undertook  to 
make  them — and  filled  the  contract.    A  complicated 


178  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

job  that  was  brought  to  her  by  some  French  officers, 
who  politely  hoped  that  they  might  see  the  thing  ac- 
complished within  five  days,  was  promised  comple- 
tion within  as  many  hours — and  the  promise  was 
kept  to  the  minute.  Tucked  upon  her  main  deck  are 
offices  that  carry  accounts  of  the  entire  Naval  Force 
under  Admiral  Wilson;  tucked  close  by  are  the 
butcher-shops  and  kitchen,  and  the  bakery  that  pro- 
duces four  hundred  loaves  a  day  for  the  mechanics 
and  crew.  But  these  are  only  minor  matters:  the 
big  task  in  the  life  of  the  mother-ship  is  to  keep  the 
fleet  shipshape. 

"There  may  be  some  things  we  can't  do,"  said  her 
commander,  "but  there's  nothing  we  won't  try." 


"We're  first  to  fight,"  we  always  said; 

Said  the  Army:  "Never  fear: 
This  job's  an  Army-job,  and  so 
You'll  do  no  fighting  here! 
You're  very  zvell 
For  a  little  spell 
At  a  port  in  time  of  peace; 
But  here  in  France 
We  lead  the  dance — 
You're  First  Men  to  Police! 

CHORUS 

"Cop- 
Cop— 
Cop- 
Cop! 
(Say,  Bill,  when  do  we  eat?) 
You've  fought  around  the  big  round  world. 

But  here  you  zvalk  a  beat!" 
Armed  with  a  night-stick,  bless  your  soul. 
Doing  a  city  street-patrol; 
(Gee,  zvill  it  never  stop?) 
Tramping  from  Beersheba  to  Dan 
To  get  a  zvhack  at  an  Army-wan, 
(Chop!— 
Chop!) 
I  may  have  fought  in  a  dozen  wars. 
But  here  I'm  doing  the  M.  P.'s  chores. — 
Cop!! 

"We're  first  to  fight,"  we  kept  it  up; 
Said  the  Army:   "Cut  it  out! 
We're  real  A-i's, 
We  tote  the  guns 
And  put  the  Huns 

To  rout. 


From  black  Bordeaux 
To  Neuf chateau 

Police  until  you  drop; 
The  best  Marine 
Is  green — 
Sea-green — 

He's  nothing  but  a  cop!" 

CHORUS 

"Cop—\  etc. 

And  then  Friend  Fritz  took  off  his  coat. 

And  zve  heard  some  one  say: 
"There's  a  hurry-call  and  an  S.  O.  S. 
From  up  Cantigny  way!" 

And — oh,  my  hat! — 

Right  off  the  bat: 
"We're  smashed  to  smithereens; 

For  God's  sake,  friend, 

Hump  up  and  send 
American  Marines!" 

CHORUS 

First — 

First — 

First — 

First! 
(Say,  Bill,  now  was  I  right?) 
We  voere  the  first  to  volunteer, 

And  we  are  the  first  to  fight! 
Toting  the  good  old  gun  again, 
Who  are  the  nail-biting  fighting-men, 
Boiling-point,  Fahrenheit? 


Now  that  there's  more  than  parades  to  do, 
Who  do  they  yell  for,  sonny, — who — 
Day — 

And  Night?    . 
Pocket  your  club  in  your  Doughboy-jeans 
(I  guess  you  knozv  what  that  order  means!): 
We  are  the  true 

Sea-blue 

Marines — 
We  are  the  First  to  Fight! 


CHAPTER  XIII 


MARINES  ASHORE 


HIGH  noon  of  a  calm  spring  day,  1918 — but  the 
sun  is  invisible. 

There  is  not  a  cloud  in  the  heavens — but  you  can 
see  scarcely  twenty  yards  ahead  of  you. 

The  billows  of  smoke  burn  your  eyes;  they  choke 
you ;  they  strangle. 

The  noise  strikes  like  a  bludgeon.  It  hammers, 
blow  on  blow,  against  the  ear-drums. 

It  is  as  if  this  were  a  pit  in  a  foundry. 

Really,  it  is  all  that  is  left  of  what  was  once  a  vil- 
lage street,  and  over  there,  behind  those  few  black- 
ened stones  that  used  to  be  a  cottage,  are  three  men 
— one  dead,  one  dying  and  one  ready  to  die. 

American  troops  had  held  that  village.  Momen- 
tarily, all  had  fallen  back.  All  but  those  three. 
They  had  driven  off  an  entire  company  of  Germans 
— at  the  price  of  the  life  of  one  of  the  Americans. 
Then  the  Germans  had  returned  to  the  attack — over 
the  bodies  of  their  comrades  left  there  after  the  first 
assault.  They  were  driven  back  again  this  time — 
at  the  price  of  a  fatal  wound  to  one  of  the  two  re- 
maining Americans.  Now,  of  a  sudden,  they 
charged  again  around  the  comer. 

182 


MARINES    ASHORE  ,      183 

The  dying  man  lifted  his  head : 

"Beat  it,  Tom,"  he  said,  "Get  away  while  the 
going's  good," 

Tom  slowly  poured  a  trickle  of  water  from  his 
canteen  through  the  lips  of  the  dying  man. 

"I've  forgot  how  to  run,"  said  Tom — and  he 
smiled  as  he  said  it, 

"There's  no  use  your  staying  here :  I'm  all  in." 

'Tm  not." 

"But  you  can't  whip  that  whole  company." 

"No,"  said  Tom;  "I  guess  I  can't.  But  I  can 
keep  'em  busy  for  a  while." 

He  picked  up  his  rifle.  He  crouched  behind  the 
pile  of  stones.    He  fired. 

As  he  fired,  the  wounded  man  died. 

The  Germans  charged. 

Tom  fired  again  and  again.  Until  the  onrushing 
Germans  were  within  ten  feet  of  him,  he  aimed  care- 
fully.   Then  he  fired  point-blank. 

A  moment  later,  they  were  upon  him,  and  he  was 
using  his  rifle  as  a  club. 

The  returning  Americans  found  him  so  engaged. 
He  had  "kept  the  enemy  busy"  until  the  relief  ar- 
rived. 

As  they  carried  him  to  a  first-aid  station  near 
Cantigny,  his  litter  passed  the  commanding  officer, 
who  had  already  heard  Tom's  story.  The  C.  O.  was 
an  infantry  officer,  a  West  Pointer. 

"That  was  brave  work,"  said  he  to  Tom, 

"Thank  you,  sir,"  said  Tom, 


184  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

"But  it  was  useless,"  said  the  officer.  "Why  did 
you  do  it?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  Tom  answered;  "just  to  keep 
up  to  the  reputation  of  my  corps.  You  see,  I'm  a 
Marine." 

Thomas  understood  his  duty.  The  days  when  our 
fathers  sang  Captain  Jinks  are  passed,  and  passed 
the  days  when  our  grandfathers  branded  the  Marine 
as  a  stupid  oaf  by  replying  to  any  unbelievable  story 
with  the  smiling  assertion  that  it  had  better  be  ad- 
dressed to  the  Marines.  Torcy  has  made  us  forget 
such  slurs,  and  Veuilly  Wood  and  Cantigny;  we 
know  now  that  the  motto  of  the  Marine  Corps  is: 
Obey  orders  and  then  some. 

In  1740,  England  organized  three  regiments  of 
American  Marines  in  New  York  and,  while  their 
field  officers  were  created  by  royal  appointment, 
their  company  commanders  were  nominated  by  the 
colonies.  Thirty-five  years  later,  the  Continental 
Congress  declared  "that  the  compact  between  the 
crown  and  Massachusetts  Bay"  was  "dissolved," 
and  within  six  months  of  that  declaration — that  is  to 
say,  on  November  10th,  1775,  or  about  eight  months 
before  the  proclamation  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence— the  Marine  Corps  was  organized.  In  the 
Revolution,  they  landed  at  New  Providence,  in  the 
Bahamas,  capturing  the  British  forts  as  their  part 
in  the  first  battle  of  our  Navy;  they  seized  the  Gen- 
eral Monk  in  Delaware  Bay ;  they  fought  with  John 
Paul  Jones.     In  the  Mexican  War,  they  stormed 


MARINES    ASHORE  185 

Chapultepec  under  Twiggs  and  Reynolds.  They 
were  with  Perry  in  Japan ;  they  reenforced  Sumter 
and  Pickens;  they  occupied  Guantanamo  and  held 
it  against  Spanish  odds,  fought  at  Santiago  and 
landed  at  Cavite,  In  the  battle  of  Tientsin  they  did 
their  bit,  and  they  marched  to  Peking  for  the  relief 
of  the  American  Legation;  their  march  across  hos- 
tile Samar  in  1901  wrote  one  of  the  heroic  pages  in 
our  history,  and  it  was  they  that  were  the  only 
American  troops  engaged  in  the  disarmament  of  the 
insurgent  Cubans  in  1906.  "The  work  recently 
accomplished  by  them  in  Vera  Cruz  and  Hayti," 
wrote  Admiral  Dewey  in  1915,  "has  fully  justified 
my  belief  that  no  finer  military  organization  exists 
in  the  world  to-day." 

Now,  it  has  been  my  fortune  to  see  something  of 
their  life  and  to  gather  some  examples  of  a  little 
of  the  Marines'  fighting  in  France.  The  best  way  to 
begin  any  mention  of  them  is  by  echoing  Admiral 
Dewey's  words.  I  remember  well  the  first  conversa- 
tion that  I  heard  after  going  among  them : 

"Sir,  I  thank  you  for  permission  to  go  ashore." 

"Aren't  you  the  cook?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"How  long  do  you  want?" 

"Just  till  six  bells,  sir." 

"Who're  you  leaving  in  charge  of  the  galley?" 

"Mott,  sir." 

"Mott?    Where's  Schultz?" 

"On  the  binnacle-list,  sir.    Hit  the  deck  yesterday 


186  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

an'  sprained  his  ankle.  But  there's  only  slumgullion 
to  get,  sir,  an'  Mott's  all  right  at  that." 

"Better  go  before  the  mast.  If  the  skipper  hasn't 
any  objection,  I'll  give  you  shore-leave." 

It  sounded  like  the  opening  of  a  sea-romance  by 
Joseph  Conrad,  yet  I  was  on  dry  land.  The  only 
canvas  was  that  of  a  tent  or  two  among  rows  of 
Adrian  huts;  the  sole  funnel  was  the  gaunt  chim- 
ney of  an  open-air  oven ;  the  nearest  thing  to  a  mast 
was  a  flag-pole. 

An  enlisted  man  was  asking  an  officer  if  he  might 
walk  from  this  cantonment  to  town,  returning  at 
eleven  o'clqck,  and  was  explaining  that,  his  chief 
assistant  having  hurt  himself  in  a  fall,  the  beef -stew 
for  mess  would  be  prepared  in  the  kitchen  by  a  com- 
petent substitute.  Whereto  the  officer  was  replying 
that  it  would  be  necessary  for  the  applicant  to  go 
to  the  Captain's  office  and  obtain  there  an  assurance 
that  the  petition  had  the  Captain's  O.  K.  In  brief,  I 
was  in  a  camp,  ashore,  of  the  U.  S.  Marines. 

Kipling  was  right.  That  poem  of  his  about  the 
British  "Jollies"  jumps  into  your  mind  the  moment 
you  become  a  guest  of  their  American  counterpart 
and  continues  to  justify  itself  so  long  as  you  remain. 
Both  because  he  carries  his  sea-lingo  ashore  and  his 
shore-rifle  afloat,  and  because  he  is  as  much  an  am- 
phibian in  duties  as  in  mind,  I  can  think  of  the 
Marine,  not  as  a  "special  chrysanthemum,"  but  only 
as  "soldier  an'  sailor,  too." 

He  has  done  police  duty  across  half  the  world — 


MARINES    ASHORE  187 

from  Porto  Rica  to  the  Philippines — when  I  first 
saw  him,  he  was  policing  in  France.  He  has  fought 
in  Cuba  and  the  islands  of  the  Pacific,  in  Mexico 
and  Hayti — everywhere,  he  has  justifiably  boasted, 
he  was  "The  First  to  Fight" — and  now,  although 
a  little  hurt  at  not  being  allowed  to  be  the  earliest  to 
pull  a  trigger  among  our  men  in  Europe — his  had  at 
least  the  distinction  of  being  the  earliest  and  readiest 
unit  of  them  that  arrived  for  such  a  purpose  on  the 
eastern  shore  of  the  Atlantic. 

The  first  Marine  that  I  saw  when  I  came  aboard 
was  one  of  a  squad  unloading  stone  from  a  railway 
car  for  the  construction  of  a  pier;  around  about 
were  similarly  employed  squads  of  Engineers  and 
negro  contract-labourers  from  Louisiana.  The  last 
Marine  I  saw  on  that  same  day  was,  with  business- 
like calm,  subduing  five  tall  men  by  means  of  one 
short  club. 

Of  him,  when  he  had  refused  my  proffered  help 
with  quiet  scorn  and  secured  his  prisoners  by  his 
own  unaided  efforts,  I  asked  a  question. 

"Why  don't  the  infantry  care  for  us?"  he  snapped 
back.  He  nodded  at  his  five  charges.  ''That's  why ! 
O'  course  they  say  we  go  out  of  our  way  to  beat  'em 
up,  but  o'  course  it  ain't  true.  Our  job's  to  keep 
things  quiet,  Rainbow  Division  er  no  Rainbow  Di- 
vision, an'  we  can  do  it  best  by  not  seein'  fellows 
unless  they  want  to  be  seen." 

"Still,"  I  urged,  "you  don't  dislike  it — this  sort  of 
thing?" 


188  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

He  grinned  broadly. 

"  'First  to  fight !'  "  he  chuckled. 

To  the  other  Marine  just  mentioned — to  the  mem- 
ber of  the  stone-hauling  squad — I  put,  I  recall,  an- 
other query: 

"What  do  you  think  of  Pershing?" 

"Well,"  he  answered,  "Pershing  don't  seem  to 
think  much  of  us/' 

That  man  was  disappointed  because  his  corps  had 
to  cart  stone  when  it  wanted  to  fight.  He  might 
have  argued  that  General  Pershing  thought  a  good 
deal  of  the  Marines  because  he  trusted  so  much  to 
their  performance. 

For  the  Marines  were  everywhere.  They  were 
the  first  Americans  you  saw  when  you  landed :  they 
were  maintaining  order  at  our  ports  of  entry.  All 
the  way  across  the  country  and  through  the  Ameri- 
can Camp,  it  is  a  Marine  that  you  note  at  every  sta- 
tion— a  Marine  that  comes  up  to  you  with  blank- 
book  and  poised  pencil  with  the  demand,  firm  but 
polite  :  "Let  me  make  a  note  of  your  movement-or- 
ders, sir."  In  Paris,  as  in  every  French  town  and 
village  where  there  are  United  States  troops,  there 
are  also  the  Marines,  on  patrol-duty  by  night  and 
traffic-control  by  day,  their  blue  sea-service  uniforms 
changed  for  land  uniforms  of  khaki  and  around 
their  left  arms  the  red  brassard  bearing  the  black 
initials  "M.  P." 

"What  are  those  fellows,  sir?"  a  Gordon  High- 
lander once  asked  me  on  the  Rue  de  Rivoli. 


MARINES    ASHORE  189 

"Marines,"  I  told  him.  "The  letters  stand  for 
'Military  Police.'  " 

"Oh,"  he  said,  "I  heard  you  had  some  of  your 
Congressmen  over  here,  an'  I  was  awonderin'  were 
these  them,  an'  if  the  letters  meant  'Member  o'  Par- 
lymint.' " 

Finally,  at  the  seaside  cities,  the  Marines  were 
both  "shore-cops"  and  stevedores. — "But  only  for  a 
little  while,"  they  one  and  all  assured  the  questioner, 
even  the  officers:  "The  Brass  Hats  are  sure  to  let 
us  fight  soon." 

"Now  'is  work  begins  by  Gawd  knows  when, 

and  'is  work  is  never  through ; 
'E  isn't  one  o'  the  reg'lar  Line, 

nor  'e  isn't  one  of  the  crew. 
'E's  a  kind  of  a  giddy  horumfroditC' — 

soldier  an'  sailor  too !" 

So  many  of  our  camps  in  France,  save  in  the  dis- 
trict of  the  big  American  Camp  proper,  are  on  the 
grounds  of  old  chateaux  that,  when  I  first  went 
there,  I  found  nothing  that  was  any  longer  strange 
in  the  presence  of  a  full-blown  Marines'  cantonment 
among  what  had  once  been  the  vast  formal  gardens 
of  an  old  Girondist  family.  The  ancient  house  still 
stands  untouched,  though  the  Stars  and  Stripes  fly 
from  a  turret  beside  the  Tricoleur;  in  the  grounds 
nearest  it,  I  noted,  among  the  inevitable  tokens  of 
disuse,  only  one  sign  of  decay — the  box-seat  of  a 
summer-house  had  burst  open  and  displayed  a  cro- 


190  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

quet-set,  stored  there,  most  likely,  since  the  fatal 
August  of  '14 — yet  down  the  hill  swarm  the  rows 
of  Adrian  huts  that  have  grown  into  a  city  between 
last  spring  and  now.  The  Girondist  owners  have 
left  their  estate,  and  along  the  paths  where 
they  and  their  fathers  strolled  now  hurry  two 
t3^pes  of  a  new  order:  German  prisoners,  conducted 
by  French  guards,  often  only  half  their  size,  to  their 
work  of  ditch-digging;  and  American  Marines 
swinging  along  to  the  multitudinous  duties  that 
make  their  service  unique. 

If,  however,  you  must  have  soldiers  of  any  sort 
on  your  front  lawn  or  in  your  back  yard,  I  commend 
the  "Jollies."  They  have  two  salient  characteristics : 
their  ability  to  make  something  out  of  nothing  and 
to  do  it  quickly,  results  in  their  establishing  them- 
selves at  once  and  with  a  minimum  of  damage  to 
surroundings;  and,  since  they  bring  ashore  with 
them  the  sea  tradition  of  cleanliness  and  order,  they 
are,  when  not  the  first  to  fight,  the  First  to  Clean. 

I  recall  a  French  seaport  at  which  none  of  our 
men  had  ever  landed  before  a  certain  ship  began 
to  disgorge  an  equal  number  of  soldiers  and  Ma- 
rines :  the  latter  were  under  canvas  before  the  former 
had  left  the  dock;  the  Marines  had  even  collected 
kindling  from  ash-heaps  and  had  their  cookstoves 
going.  One  night,  I  saw  a  newly-arrived  company 
of  them  march  into  camp ;  when  I  visited  their  quar- 
ters at  6  A.  M.,  you  would  have  supposed  that  they 
had  been  born  and  bred  there. 


MARINES    ASHORE  191 

"All  our  own  work  but  the  stone- foundations  for 
the  ovens,"  a  sergeant  assured  me,  "an'  we'd  have 
done  that,  only  these  French  Johnnies  insisted  that 
it  was  a  job  for  the  Boche  prisoners." 

He  was  a  company-clerk,  that  sergeant,  and  in  the 
tiny  space  allowed  him  there  was  not  room  for  a 
bed  and  an  opened  army-desk  at  one  and  the  same 
time.  All  the  first  night  he  stayed  awake  construct- 
ing a  bunk  that  folds  upward  on  the  principle  of  the 
upper-berth  in  a  Pullman  car. 

Sanitation  the  Marines  have  learned  through  hard 
necessity,  through  duty  in  tropic  lands  where,  until 
their  arrival,  the  natives  casually  threw  their  slops 
out  of  the  windows.  Now  every  member  of  the 
corps  has  its  rules  at  his  fingers'  ends ;  their  practise 
speedily  becomes  the  second  nature  of  the  rawest 
recruit,  is  a  matter  of  corps  pride.  The  clothes-lines 
are  full  each  morning;  whenever  there  is  sunlight, 
the  Marines  "break  out  the  bunks,"  which  is  to  say 
that  they  drag  their  beds  and  bedclothes  into  the 
open  for  an  airing. 

"They  think  for  'emselves  an'  they  steal  for 
'emselves,  an'  they  never  ask  what's  to  do, 

But  they're  camped  an'  fed  an'  they're  up  an'  fed 
before  our  bugles  blew. 

No !  they  ain't  no  limpin'  procrastitutes — soldier  an* 
sailor  too." 

What  sort  of  men  are  they?  They  will  answer 
that  interrogation    with    a    ready    brevity:     "The 


192  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

best,"  they  will  say — and,  after  living  among  them,  I 
am  not  sure  that  they  are  altogether  wrong.  But  they 
are  also  all  sorts.  Edwin  Denby,  formerly  American 
Minister  to  China,  is  a  Marine.  So  are  Ernest  Glen- 
denning,  the  actor;  Warren  Straton,  an  Oxford 
Rhodes  scholar;  "Dots"  Miller,  once  captain  and 
second  baseman  of  the  St.  Louis  National  League 
Baseball-team;  William  J.  McCoy,  nephew  of  that 
Major-General  Barnett  who  is  Commandant  of  the 
Marines  at  Washington;  Frederick  W.  Maurer,  the 
arctic  explorer ;  Eddie  Mahan,  once  a  Harvard  foot- 
ball star,  and  Peter  Garlow,  perhaps  the  best  athlete 
ever  graduated  from  the  Carlisle  Indian  School. 

By  one  of  the  odd  freaks  of  their  anomalous  law 
of  organization,  their  surgeons  and  chaplains  are 
sailors,  whereas  all  the  rest  of  the  corps  is,  in  each 
individual  case,  one-half  land  and  one-half  sea.  Per- 
haps because  distance  makes  for  romance,  the  ma- 
jority of  our  Marines  come,  it  appears,  from  the 
plains;  there  is  the  band  of  a  state  agricultural  col- 
lege in  the  Mississippi  Valley  that  enlisted  as  a 
unit,  and  across  the  way  is  housed  a  company 
seventy  members  of  which  joined  in  a  body  from 
the  university  of  one  of  our  central  northwestern 
commonwealths.  Most  of  them  never  saw  the  ocean 
before  they  volunteered  for  service. 

"You  know,"  one  of  these  told  me,  "when  we  raw 
fellows  got  on  the  transport,  we  found  they'd  re- 
membered only  the  sailor  side  of  us  and  given  us 
hammocks  to  sleep  in — just  hammocks,  only  half 


fc 


in 


MARINES    ASHORE  193 

too  short  for  a  grown  man  and  two-thirds  too  nar- 
row. We'd  never  been  to  sea  before;  it  was  all  we 
could  do  to  climb  into  the  things,  and  more  than  we 
could  do  to  stay  there  when  the  ship  began  to  act  up. 
So  we  just  rolled  'em  up  for  pillows  an'  slept  on  the 
floor." 

Don't,  how^ever,  suppose  that  the  majority  of 
Marines  are  green  men.  Though  by  far  the  larger 
part  volunteered,  by  far  the  larger  part  volunteered 
long  ago.  Some  day  somebody  will  write  a  romance 
of  the  Marines,  and  when  he  does,  he  need  not 
draw  on  his  imagination :  he  need  only  collect  the 
data — when  their  stolid  modesty  will  vouchsafe  it — 
from  such  veterans  as  we  have  here,  who  began  as 
those  boys  from  Kansas  and  Minnesota  are  begin- 
ning now.  He  need  but  tell  the  story  of  that  ser- 
geant of  thirty,  who  looks  twenty-five  and  enlisted 
at  sixteen ;  of  how  he  ran  away  to  sea ;  of  that  cloud- 
less day  when  he  rowed  under  fire  across  the  unpro- 
tected strip  of  water  to  patrol  the  streets  of  Vera 
Cruz,  and  of  the  succeeding  night,  when  he,  and  three 
other  men,  held  a  freight  car  loaded  with  explosives, 
against  an  armed  Mexican  mob.  He  need  only  gain 
the  confidence  of  this  lad  from  Pittsburgh  to  learn 
of  hand-to-hand  fights  that  began  against  outnum- 
bering Mexican  regulars,  drawn  from  their  cover  on 
roofs  and  from  behind  chimneys,  and  ended  in  re- 
pelling the  rear-attacks  of  the  Mexican  police. 

"You  see  that  grizzled  old  fellow  over  there?"  a 
Captain  asked  me. 


194  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

He  himself  was  young  enough  to  have  been  the 
"old  fellow's"  son,  but  the  old  fellow  was  still  tough 
enough  to  have  been  the  Captain's  twin  brother. 

"Well,  he's  had  a  lot  of  it — Philippines,  Boxer 
Rebellion,  Vera  Cruz  and  Hayti.  You  know,  in  the 
Marines,  when  we  can't  think  of  the  generic  name 
for  anything,  we  call  it  a  'gadget'  or  a  'gilguy.' 
Now,  this  man  has  won  a  Congressional  Medal 
and  has  another  coming.  When  we  sighted  the 
French  coast,  I  was  standing,  where  he  couldn't  see 
me,  just  behind  him;  and  I  heard  him  say,  while  he 
looked  over  things  in  general : 

"'I  got  one  o'  them  gadgets  now  an'  one  on  its 
way.    I  wonder  if  I'll  get  another  over  here.'  " 

But  it  is  hard  to  make  the  Marine  talk.  Whether 
he  retains  the  credulity  with  which  sea  tradition 
credits  him,  I  don't  know,  but  I  do  know  that  his 
past  sea-equipment  does  not  include  the  love  of  im- 
probable yarn-spinning  that  land-legends  credit  to 
the  sailor.  Once  I  rode  to  town  in  the  side-car  of 
a  motorcycle;  the  man  that  drove  me — in  the  Ma- 
rines' language  he  was  thus  the  "coxswain  of  a 
steam-cycle" — had  not  a  word  to  say  for  himself, 
and  yet  he  was  the  man  of  the  medals. 

Do  you  remember  a  certain  untoward  incident  of 
the  Spanish-American  War — the  occasion  when  the 
U.  S.  Ship  Dolphin  mistakenly  shelled  the  Ameri- 
can trenches?  There  were  Marines  in  those 
trenches.  They  were  defenseless  under  that  fire; 
they  had  not  even  semaphore-flags  with  which  to 


MARINES   ASHORE  195 

communicate  to  their  comrades  afloat.  One  young 
Marine  took  a  pair  of  bayonets  and  two  handker- 
chiefs, constructed  signal-flags  of  them,  jumped  out 
of  the  trenches  and,  standing  there  with  death  rain- 
ing about  him,  snapped  out  "C.  F. — C.  F. — C.  F.," 
that  is,  "Cease  Firing,"  over  and  over  again,  until 
the  Dolphin's  gunners  realized  their  mistake. 

That  was  how  he  got  his  first  Congressional  Medal 
of  Honor.  When  our  Marines  went  into  action  in 
France,  this  man  volunteered  to  take  a  heavily-laden 
convoy  of  ammunition-wagons  along  a  road  that  was 
being  scoured  by  German  shells  and  machine-guns. 
Somebody  had  to  do  it  in  order  to  relieve  a  des- 
perate situation;  Sergeant-Major  Quick  did  it — and 
received  his  other  gadget,  our  new  Distinguished 
Service  Cross. 

"How  do  you  get  along  with  the  negro  com- 
panies?" I  asked  my  Captain. 

As  I  spoke,  a  negro  was  passing.  Like  some  of 
his  fellows,  he  wore,  not  the  service  khaki,  but  the 
older  sort  of  uniform — blue  with  yellow  facings. 

"All  right  now,"  said  the  Captain,  "but  there  was 
some  feeling  at  first  between  the  drafted  negroes 
and  those  who  had  preceded  them  in  service.  The 
drafted  ones  were  ordered  to  wear  the  blue-and- 
yellow,  and  felt  it  was  an  invidious  distinction.  The 
commanding  officer  locked  'em  all  up  together.  Then 
he  would  mysteriously  remove,  under  guard,  a  squad 
at  a  time.  He'd  take  the  removed  squad  aside,  man 
by  man,  and  'reason'  with  them;  when  one  of  'em 


196  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

weakened,  he'd  get  him  into  blue-and-yellow  quick 
and  march  him  past  the  guard-house  windows.  The 
negroes  inside  would  see  that  this  fellow  had  done 
what  was  required  of  him  and  was  free,  whereas 
their  ifhaginations  invented  all  sorts  of  terrors  as  to 
the  fate  of  the  rest  of  the  squad.  Inside  of  three 
days,  the  whole  lot  had  overcome  their  prejudices 
against  the  yellow-and-blue.  They're  all  useful  men 
now — and,  besides,  our  dogs  like  'em." 

That  is  another  important  branch  of  the  Marine 
Corps — its  dogs.  Every  regiment  has  one  or  two. 
This  regiment  has  three,  and  a  couple  of  them  lay 
beside  me  one  afternoon:  Poilu  and  Cognac,  little 
Gallic  beasts  acquired  on  this  side  of  the  water.  Oni- 
waminthe,  I  regret  to  say,  wasn't  there. 

"Oniwaminthe?"  I  remember  repeating,  when 
first  an  old  private  named  him  to  me. 

"Yes,  sir,  that's  it.  We  called  him  after  the  place 
in  Hayti  where  we  picked  him  up.  Spell  it?  We 
don't  spell  it — don't  ever  have  to.  If  you  want  to 
spell  it,  you'll  have  to  look  it  up  on  a  map." 

There  was  no  map  of  the  Carribean  in  that  camp 
of  France,  so  I  shall  stick  to  the  phonetic  spelling — 
phonetic,  that  is,  in  accord  with  the  Marine's  pro- 
nunciation. 

"He  came  into  our  lines  in  Hayti,"  began  my  in- 
formant, "on  the  day — " 

"What  kind  of  dog  is  he?"  I  interrupted. 

"What  kind?    No  kind.    Just  dog." 

"A  mongrel?" 


MARINES   ASHORE  197 

"Not  much!" 

"Then  what  kind?" 

"The  white  kind.  A  Haytian  dog.  Well,  he  came 
into  our  lines  the  day  America  went  into  this  Euro- 
pean war.  The  United  States  had  a  battle  that  day 
in  Hayti.  Didn't  know  that,  did  you,  sir?  It  was 
all  buried,  back  home,  in  the  big  news  from  Wash- 
ington. Still,  it's  a  fact  all  right.  We  had  a  battle 
that  would  have  been  all  over  the  front  pages  of 
newspapers  five  years  ago;  an',  in  the  middle  of  it, 
this  white  dog  came  trotting  into  our  lines,  with 
bullets  dropping  all  around  him,  as  calm  as  if  he 
was  just  paying  a  New  Year's  call.  So  we  liked 
him  right  off.  You  see,  he  as  much  as  said :  'White 
hair — white  flag — honorable  capitulation.'  We 
adopted  him  an'  named  him  Oniwaminthe. 

"He  was  a  sea-dog  from  the  very  first.  Why, 
comin'  across  the  Bay  o'  Biscay,  I  was  in  the  crow's 
nest  one  day  about  twilight,  an'  there  was  a  heavy 
groundswell  on.  The  old  deck  was  goin'  up  on  one 
side  an'  down  on  the  other.  I  watched  a  company 
of  Marines  drillin'  just  below  me.  They  were  in 
company- front  an'  were  all  veterans,  but  every  time 
the  boat'd  roll,  the  whole  line  o'  men'd  slide  forward 
or  backward.  All  but  Oniwaminthe.  He'd  took  up 
his  position  as  a  sort  o'  file-closer,  in  the  rear,  an' 
that  dog  never  gave  an  inch." 

"Where  is  he  now?"  I  asked. 

"Well,  sir,  I  don't  like  to  say  anything  against 
him,  an'  I  know  he'll  turn  up  again,  now,  in  a  day 


198  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

or  two ;  but  the  fact  is,  France  has  been  too  much  for 
Oniwaminthe.  It's  gone  to  his  head.  Since  we've 
been  ashore,  he's  formed  the  habit  of  breaking 
camp." 

"You  mean  he  runs  away?" 

"Well,  not  exactly  that ;  but  he  goes  to  town  with- 
out leave,  an'  that  ain't  regular.  Our  men  don't  find 
so  much  temptation  that  way,  because  the  language 
is  still  strange  to  them,  though  they're  beginning  to 
pick  it  up;  but,  you  see,  Onivvaminthe  is  a  born 
what-do-you-call-it — Lothario — an',  bein'  Haytian, 
of  course  he  speaks  the  same  dog-French  these 
French  dogs  do.  He  comes  back  lookin'  like  an 
Australian  after  his  first  night  in  London — but  he 
does  come  back." 

A  banjo  tinkled  from  a  near-by  hut;  in  the  hut  in 
which  we  were  talking  there  still  hung  decorations 
that  had  been  put  up  for  Easter. 

"We  played  baseball  on  Easter — two  games,"  said 
my  friend,  "an'  the  whole  city  came  out  to  them. 
The  sport  was  a  new  one,  an'  it  staggered  'em,  but 
not  so  much  as  the  cheer-leaders.  We  had  real 
cheer-leaders;  they'd  stand  out  in  front  and  beat 
time  with  their  whole  bodies,  an'  pretty  soon  the 
French  was  so  busy  watchin'  them  that  they  couldn't 
look  at  the  diamond.  What  d'you  think?  They'd 
never  seen  a  cheer-leader  before!  It's  wilder  than 
anything  the  scuttle-butt  gossips  could  make  up." 

There  it  was  again — this  time  the  "scuttle-butt" ! 
Ships  are  full  of  rumor,  and  rumors,  at  sea,  orig- 


MARINES   ASHORE  199 

inate  in  talk  exchanged  around  the  scuttle-butt,  or 
drinking-barrel,  so  that  all  wild  stories  are  branded 
as  "scuttle-butt  yarns."  Nothing,  however,  that 
ever  sprang  from  the  scuttle-butt  could  be  stranger 
than  the  terms  in  which  it  is  conveyed.  The  Marine, 
as  I've  said,  carries  all  his  sea  terms  ashore,  and  his 
vocabulary  is  almost  entirely  nautical. 

When  he  stops  what  he  has  been  doing,  he  "be- 
lays" it;  when  you  tell  him  to  prepare  to  do  some- 
thing else,  you  order  him  to  "stand  by"  for  it,  and 
when  he  is  called  before  his  commanding  officer,  he 
is  brought  "up  before  the  mast."  Though  he  falls 
on  a  country  road  out  of  sight  of  the  sea,  he  "hits 
the  deck;"  when  he  is  slightly  ill,  he  goes  "on  the 
binnacle-list,"  and  when  he  must  at  last  enter  hos- 
pital, even  if  a  motor-ambulance  carries  him  to  a 
building  at  a  street-corner,  it  carries  him  to  the 
"sick  bay."  If  he  knocks  a  companion  down  through 
exuberance  of  good  spirits,  he  goes  to  "the  brig" 
for  a  day  or  two.  He  gets  a  stripe  for  every  en- 
listment, and  the  stripes  are  "hashmarks ;"  he  keeps 
himself  "shipshape"  as  much  ashore  as  afloat;  the 
kitchen  is  the  "galley"  wherever  it  may  be,  and  a 
captain  is  always  a  "skipper." 

On  ship,  at  leisure  hours  in  the  evening,  the  Ma- 
rines light  a  lamp  in  their  quarters  and  smoke ;  they 
call  it  "lighting  the  smoking-lamp,"  and  in  camp 
their  dismissal  to  leisure  remains  "lighting  the  smok- 
ing-lamp," even  when  there  is  no  lamp  about  and 
the  tobacco  is  exhausted.    Their  Central  and  South 


200  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

American  service  has  contributed  "pronto"  for 
"quickly,"  has  twisted  manana  into  "slowly,"  and 
they  now  use  "hombre"  for  "prisoner."  What  new 
terms  they  will  learn  from  their  work  in  France, 
Heaven  only  knows. 

It  is  all  sorts  of  work,  in  all  sorts  of  weather,  at 
every  hour  of  the  clock.  Here  Marines  were  haul- 
ing stone  with  Engineers  and  contract-labourers. 
Throughout  the  American  Zone  in  France,  they  were 
the  policemen  that  never  sleep.  Now  the  day  has 
come  when  they  are  holding  their  bit  of  the  line 
against  the  Boche.  Boys  from  western  farms  and 
men  from  Manila  and  Vera  Cruz,  they  are  pure 
grain  that  is  being  poured  into  every  one  of  a  dozen 
of  the  horrible  hoppers  of  war. 

"An'  after  I  met  'im  all  over  the  world,  a-doin'  all 

kinds  of  things, 
Like  landin'  'isself  with  a  Gatlin'  gun  to  talk  to  them 

'eathen  kings  .... 
There  isn't  a  job  on  the  top  o'  the  earth  the  beggar 

don't  know,  nor  do — 
'E's  a  sort  of  a  bloomin'  cosmopolouse — soldier  an' 

sailor  too." 

What  the  American  Marine  made  of  his  work 
when  that  work  at  last  brought  him  into  the  fighting- 
line  in  France,  the  world  already  knows.  His 
medical-corps  set  up  a  first-aid  station  under  the  very 
noses  of  the  enemy  machine-guns  at  Chateau- 
Thierry;  one  of  his  corporals,  single-handed,  fought 


MARINES   ASHORE  201 

his  way  through  a  wood  full  of  Germans,  while 
bearing  on  his  back  his  wounded  lieutenant.  In  one 
capacity  or  another,  it  was  the  American  Marine 
that  first  made  the  Teutons  realize  America  as  a  con- 
siderable factor  in  the  land-fighting  of  the  world 
war.  And  the  Teutons  straightway  named  our  Ma- 
rines Teufcl-Hunden. 

"We  sure  did  give  those  Heinies  something  to 
worry  about,"  was  the  way  that  a  wounded,  but 
grinning,  member  of  the  corps  expressed  it  from  his 
cot  in  a  Paris  hospital. 

Such  men  are  the  efficiently  spectacular  expression 
of  the  work  of  our  Naval  Forces  in  France. 


Nurse,  I'm  feelin'  dreadful  sick — • 

(Hold  my  hand?) 
Take  my  pulse;  it's  awful  quick — 

(  Understand  F) 
Don't  knozv  what  I'd  ever  do, 
Lyin'  here,  if  'tweren't  for  you: 
This  here  sick  hay's  comfy  to 

Beat  the  band! 

Nurse,  I  need  some  huckin'  up: 
Pat  my  head! 

That's  not  slum?     Then  tilt  the  cup- 
Time  I  fed. 

I  don't  like  to  loaf  here,  Miss, 

But — home  never  was  like  this! 

(Kind  o'  need  a  mother's  kiss, 
Coin'  to  bed!) 

Every  time  you  start  away, 

I  get  worse; 
Wisht  your  duties  let  you  stay — 

Fetch  the  hearse! 
If  you  "can't  remain  and  shirk" 
I'll  (I'm  what,  you  say?  A  Turk?) 
Die — or  else  go  back  to  work, 

Nurse! 


CHAPTER  XIV 

BASE  HOSPITAL 

ON  the  fifth  of  October,  1917,  there  landed  in 
France  a  volunteer  medical  unit  largely  re- 
cruited by  the  Pennsylvania  Hospital,  of  Philadel- 
phia. They  were  held  in  an  Army  cantonment  at 
the  place  of  landing  until  the  sixteenth.  On  that 
day  they  had  packed  their  entire  impedimenta. 
Within  twenty- four  hours  they  had  arrived  at  the 
Base-port  and  there  set  up  and  had  in  working  order 
a  full-fledged  Navy  Hospital. 

Of  course  such  a  feat  was  admirable ;  so  was  much 
of  the  work  with  which  the  same  unit  followed  it; 
but  it  is  not  because  of  this  that  I  mention  these 
things.  They  are  no  more  remarkable  than  many 
others  performed  by  similar  units;  they  are  merely 
typical.  It  is  the  fact  that  they  are  typical  which 
makes  them  worthy  of  at  least  a  hasty  record. 

This  Pennsylvania  unit  was  among  the  first  ten 
thousand  men  of  the  American  Naval  Forces  to  reach 
France,  and  its  surgeons  and  physicians  were  all 
practitioners  of  standing  in  their  professions.  To 
those  professions  they  had  devoted  their  entire  lives ; 
they  had  given  up,  generally,  lucrative  practises  to 
offer  their  services  to  their  country — those  who  had 
not  done  so  had  suffered  even  more,  because  they 

203 


204  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

were  beginners  that,  returned,  would  have  painfully 
to  rebegin  building-up  their  civilian  clientele — and 
not  the  least  laudable  quality  that  I  observed  among 
them  was  that  which  both  kept  them  silent  regarding 
what  they  had  put  aside  and  lent  them  enthusiasm 
in  their  duties  abroad.  Less  than  a  month  after 
their  arrival,  they  were  even  thoroughly  navalized ; 
their  patients,  of  course,  were  only  naval  men,  and 
the  very  language  of  those  doctors  had  become  the 
language  of  the  sea;  the  attendants  were  the  "crew," 
a  bed  set  up  was  a  bed  "broken  out,"  and  a  ward,  if 
you  please,  was  a  "deck." 

I  may  not  say  that  they  had  an  easy  time  of  it. 
The  building  in  which  they  were  finally  housed  had 
of  old  been  a  Carmelite  Nunnery,  but  had  since  seen 
a  very  different  sort  of  service.  Of  ancient  con- 
struction, it  was  surrounded,  when  the  Americans 
came  there,  by  a  dry  moat  in  which  odd  cows  and 
casual  pigs  were  feeding,  and  this  was  but  a  symbol 
of  the  conditions  obtaining  within  the  house  itself. 
It  is  true  that  certain  tokens  of  its  ancient  religious 
character  still  endured  there,  yet  even  these  were  not 
always  advantageous  to  its  new  intent :  in  some  of 
the  cubbyholes  that  had  to  be  converted  into  wards 
there  still  hung  boards  emblazoned  with  pious  ad- 
monitions, doubtless  edifying  to  the  nuns  that  used 
to  sleep  beneath  them,  but  scarcely  calculated  to 
cheer  the  patients  now  ensconsed — one  read : 

"Be  warned ;  you  do  not  know  what  moment  may 
be  your  last." 


BASE    HOSPITAL  205 

Many  of  the  rooms  had  been  cells,  nearly  all  were 
what  the  incoming  doctors  described  as  "chopped 
up'' ;  yet  the  present  owners  not  only  refused  per- 
mission for  the  felling  of  a  single  tree  in  the  yard 
to  make  space  for  some  necessary  addition — they 
would  not  allow  the  knocking  down  of  a  single  parti* 
tion  or  hear  of  the  breaking  of  a  hole  in  the  roof  to 
permit  the  passage  of  a  stove-pipe. 

Nevertheless,  ingenuity  and  persuasion  combined 
toward  accomplishment.  By  making  the  best  of 
what  existed  and  by  effecting  no  change  that  was  not 
mandatory  for  the  well-being  of  their  sick,  the  phy- 
sicians and  surgeons  achieved  a  genuine  hospital. 
This  week,  the  sailor  that  lay  beneath  the  nitch  in  the 
wall  holding  a  figure  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  might  be 
a  Roman  Catholic;  his  week-hence  successor  might 
be  an  atheist.  The  chapel,  its  altar  reverently  cov- 
ered and  a  phonograph  established  beside  the  font, 
was  full  of  cots  on  which  lay  men  of  every  one  of 
that  variety  of  creeds  in  which  America  rejoices; 
outside,  a  group  of  tents  held  thirty  sick  men  each. 

In  the  same  manner,  the  staff  overcame  difficulties 
of  home  birth.  When,  for  instance,  it  was  found 
that  the  imported  supplies  did  not  include  a  centri- 
fuge, a  special  messenger  was  dispatched,  across 
France,  to  buy  one ;  it  took  two  days  to 
discover  a  centrifuge  in  Paris,  but  the  job  was  done. 
While  a  requisition  sent  in  on  December  31st  was 
waiting  until  April  15th  to  be  filled  by  the  responsi- 
ble department  in  America,  the  American  Red  Cross 


206  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

headquarters  in  Paris  were  applied  to  and,  without 
charge,  filled  the  bill.  Some  remaining  vestiges  of 
red  tape  in  the  Navy  require  that  supplies  be  bought 
only  from  firms  nominated  by  the  Navy  Depart- 
ment, and  it  is  useless  to  argue  that,  when  a  firm  so 
nominated  may  be  located  in  Chicago,  time  could  be 
saved  and  articles  of  equal  worth  procured  by  plac- 
ing the  order  with  a  reputable  Brooklyn  concern; 
but  the  inventiveness  of  these  doctors  at  our  French 
Base-port  managed  somehow  to  find  a  way  around 
such  delays  and  inconveniences. 

I  have  just  referred  to  the  Red  Cross.  Here,  as 
elsewhere  in  the  foreign  operations  of  both  our 
Navy  and  Army,  the  Red  Cross  has  been  invaluable. 
In  the  American  Camp,  a  Major-General  told  me 
that  he,  for  his  part,  did  not  know  what  he  would 
have  done  without  that  organization. 

"When  we  had  to  move  our  division  at  a  mo- 
ment's notice,"  he  said,  "we  didn't  have  trucks  suffi- 
cient for  the  work ;  we  applied  to  the  Red  Cross,  and 
it  supplied  the  necessary  trucks  within  a  few  hours. 
At  our  new  quarters,  it  was  the  Red  Cross  that  lent 
us  the  carts  needed  for  hauling  stone  in  the  repair 
of  the  roads.  Once,  reviewing  my  men,  I  found  that 
the  home  bureau  responsible  had  fallen  down  so 
badly  in  the  matter  of  socks  that,  in  midwinter,  none 
of  my  men  had  two  pairs  of  socks,  and  that  the  pair 
the  average  man  ixjssessed  wasn't  fit  to  be  worn. 
Again  I  appealed  to  the  Red  Cross.  It  didn't  even 
wait  for  the  war-delayed  railroad  trains;  it  sent 


BASE   HOSPITAL  207 

down  a  lot  of  socks  from  Paris  by  a  caravan  of  mo- 
tor-cars, and,  before  a  day  and  a  half  had  passed,  my 
men  were  fully  supplied." 

It  was  an  Army  surgeon  that  first  told  me  there 
was  not  a  splint  and  not  a  bandage  in  his  vast  Base- 
hospital  that  had  been  supplied  by  the  Army  people 
m  Washington,  all  his  splints  and  bandages  having 
come  from  the  Red  Cross.  What  he  said,  however, 
was  later  paralleled  by  what  was  told  me  at  the 
Naval  institution  of  which  I  am  now  writing. 

"Oh,  we  had  all  sorts  of  troubles,"  one  of  its 
doctors  cheerfully  informed  me.  "We  had  an  aw- 
ful time  enlarging  the  galley" — he  meant  the  kitchen 
— "but  now,  you  see,  we  have  one  that  cooks  1,500 
meals  a  day,  including  those  for  the  officers  and 
crew — and  the  officers  eat  just  what  the  crew  does. 
On  the  deck  above  we  have  an  eighteen  by  twelve 
hall  bedroom  that  we've  turned  into  a  diet-kitchen, 
and  there,  over  three  little  gas  stoves,  with  a  total  of 
eight  burners,  two  nurses  cook  a  hundred  and  eighty 
trays  daily,  and  there  are  not  any  more  than  a  group 
of  ten  of  those  trays  that  duplicates  another  group." 

Cases?  This  hospital  treats  all  sorts.  Close  by  it 
is  a  cemetery  in  which  are  buried  fighters — French, 
Algerian,  Cochin-Chinese,  Portuguese,  English  and 
Russian,  but  there  are  few  graves  of  Americans 
among  them;  from  that  beginning  of  October  17th 
up  to  the  first  of  last  May,  that  hospital  had  lost 
almost  no  patients  at  all. 

Perhaps  there  is  no  better  way  to  tell  the  story 


208  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

than  to  give  it  in  the  words  of  one  of  the  doctors. 
What  I  quote  is  from  a  personal  diary. 

"Oct.  5 — Landed.  C.  O.  (i.  e.,  Commanding  Of- 
ficer) at  once  received  orders  to  the  effect  that  our 
unit  should  be  disembarked  and  moved  to  a  canton- 
ment about  three  miles  from  the  town.  .  .  . 

"Oct.  8 — We  broke  out  our  cargo  all  day  Sunday 
and  until  noon  yesterday.  It  was  loaded  on  Army 
trucks  almost  as  soon  as  it  reached  the  docks  and 
carried  to  a  storehouse  assigned  us,  excepting  that 
our  mess-gear,  mattresses,  blankets,  tools,  lanterns, 
etc. — enough  to  make  us  self-supporting — were 
trucked  out  to  camp,  in  accord  with  plans  devised 
by  the  C.  O. ;  and  also  in  accord  with  those  plans, 
working  parties  went  ahead  to  have  the  kitchen 
ready  by  noon  to-day.  Thanks  to  such  provision,  our 
troubles,  apart  from  the  mud,  rain  and  bitter  cold, 
consisted  solely  in  meeting  the  overbearing  attitude 
of  the  Army,  for  this  is  an  Army  camp  and  full  of 
infantry,  engineers  and  Army  hospital  units  and  am- 
bulance men. 

"Our  quarters  are  in  a  long,  low  building  made  of 
shingled  boards  of  sycamore.  It  is  about  150  feet 
long  and  30  wide,  with  a  board  floor  and  a  peaked 
roof,  from  twelve  to  fifteen  feet  high,  reinforced  by 
tar-paper.  Down  each  side  of  a  center  aisle  eighteen 
inches  wide  run  two  rows  of  cots  that  stand  about  a 
foot  apart.  The  men's  quarters  are  the  same  as 
ours,  except  that  they  have  only  a  dirt  floor,  which 
is  both  dusty  and  damp.     We  broke  out  our  own 


BASE    HOSPITAL  209 

cots  and  blankets  and  got  as  comfortable  as  we 
could,  but  as,  by  a  flickering  lamp  I  write  this  in  bed, 
with  my  mattress  slipped  inside  my  rubber  poncho 
above  one  blanket,  with  two  blankets  over  me,  my 
breath  hangs  in  a  cloud  above  the  paper,  my  fingers 
are  numb  and  I  am  thankful  for  my  woollen  pa- 
jamas. 

''Oct.  p — We  are  under  Army  rations,  and  the 
chow  is  not  nearly  so  good  as  Navy  chow.  We  get 
the  same  that  our  men  do;  it  figures  about  forty 
cents  a  day,  paid  by  the  government.  We  won't 
start  officers'  mess  until  we  are  more  permanently 
located. 

"Our  wash-house  is  about  thirty  yards  from  our 
quarters,  and  the  water  is  certainly  cold.  As  for  the 
latrines,  they  are  a  hundred  yards  distant,  very  sani- 
tary with  galvanized  containers  about  as  big  as  a 
barrel,  emptied  each  day  by  German  prisoners  under 
French  Army  direction. 

"A  great  many  women  hang  about  the  outskirts 
of  the  camp,  and  there  are  more  of  the  same  sort  in 
town.  Numbers  arrived  from  Paris,  have  already 
worked  havoc.  Forty  per  cent,  of  the  patients  in 
the  Army  hospital  are  some  of  the  toll  paid  for  this, 
and  that  figure  includes  only  bed-cases,  taking  no 
account  of  the  ambulatory  types.  We  have  cau- 
tioned our  own  men  and  not  minced  words. 

"Oct.  II — Progress  in  short  time:  there  must 
be  1,000  ambulances  here,  5,000  motor-trucks, 
10,000  touring-cars   and    many   motorcycles,    field 


210  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

motor-kitchens,  etc.  I  can  now  appreciate  a  remark 
by  a  Navy  officer,  who  has  been  all  around  the  world 
in  an  executive  capacity  : 

"  'You  may  knock  the  old  U.  S.  A.  as  much  as 
you  please,  but,  take  it  from  me,  she  is  the  only 
country  that  bores  with  a  big  augur  from  the  start : 
all  the  others  start  with  gimlets.' 

"C.  O.  received  definite  orders  that  we  are  to  go 
to  the  American  Naval  Base  on  this  coast  and  es- 
tablish a  hospital  there.  The  C.  O.  has  gone  ahead, 
and  we  expect  to  set  out  in  five  or  six  days.  This 
certainly  meets  our  approval,  for  we  are  out  of  luck 
here.  For  one  thing,  this  weather  is  bad  for  our 
clothes.  Amongst  all  this  khaki  our  'blues'  make  us 
look  like  an  opera  troupe,  and  it  seems  a  shame  to 
ruin  $45  suits  in  a  week  of  this  mud  and  rain.  In 
two  days  we  hope  to  have  the  Marine  Q.  M.  break 
out  some  petty-officers'  uniforms,  which  we  are  go- 
ing to  have  altered  to  pass  as  those  of  officers.  .  .  . 

"Oct.  15 — I  was  sent  in  to  the  Bureau  of  Trans- 
portation to  get  our  cars  registered  and  given  license 
numbers — we  have  a  1913  rebuilt  Locomobile  in  fair 
shape  and  a  new  white  Stanley  Steamer  ambulance. 
All  cars  over  here  must  be  painted  a  uniform  color, 
a  sort  of  cream-gray,  and  carry  a  U.  S.  number. 
Our  ambulance  now  has  U.  S.,  and  a  number  painted 
in  red  letters  on  both  sides  of  the  hood  and  at  the 
top  of  the  rear,  and  our  touring-car  has  U.  S.  and 
another  number  painted  on  both  rear  door-panels 
and  on  back. 


BASE    HOSPITAL  211 

"They  tried  to  insist  on  our  laying  the  cars  up  for 
three  days  to  paint  them  the  O.  D.  Army  color,  but 
I  explained  that  we  were,  and  expected  to  remain, 
a  strictly  Navy  organization;  that  we  would  have 
the  Navy  color  put  on  when  we  arrived  at  our  final 
destination,  but  that  we  couldn't  tie  up  our  cars  now 
for  three  days. 

"This  desire  of  certain  Army  officers  to  absorb  and 
assume  control  over  all  forces  is  a  constant  source 
of  annoyance.  I  find  that  going  direct  to  the  C.  O. 
and  using  a  little  tact,  and  not  dealing  with  lower 
grade  officers,  is  the  only  way  to  accomplish  any- 
thing, so  I  try  to  see  no  one  less  than  a  major.  Also, 
when  you  solicit  a  favor,  it  is  a  great  help  if  you  can 
offer  a  quid  pro  quo,  even  if  you  can  not  carry  it  out. 

'T  went  to  Q.  M.  B when   we    found    we 

needed  Marine  service-uniforms  to  save  our  blues. 
He  said  he  couldn't  issue  them.  But  I  found  he  was 
very  envious  of  our  oil  stoves.  Result :  yesterday 
he  sent  for  me  and  said  he  could  break  out  enough 
for  our  six  officers  and  six  chief  petty  officers  (c.  p. 
o.  s.).  He  got  the  stoves,  and  we  will  be  outfitted 
to-day.  Captain  S ,  officer  in  charge  of  trans- 
portation, having  said  that  he  hasn't  tasted  a  sweet 
potato  for  a  year,  I  hope  that  the  mess  of  sweet 
potatoes  I'm  sending  him  may  materially  facilitate 
our  transportation  arrangements. 

"Oct.  i6 — Got  a  permit  to  break  out  a  pair  of  hip- 
boots,  which  I  got  for  $2.10.  Every  one  hot- footed 
into  town  to  get  similar  boots  for  themselves.    We 


212  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

broke  out  three  oil  stoves  yesterday  and  are  much 
more  comfortable,  using  kerosene  salvaged  from  the 
dock  several  days  ago.  In  the  afternoon,  for  two 
hours,  we  painted  up  all  the  trunks  with  names  of 
officers  using  stencil  of  the  U.  S.  Naval  Base. 

"At  the  Base-Port,  Oct.  i8 — Here  we  are,  our  of- 
ficers quartered  temporarily  at  the  Hotel  M . 

We  had  reveille  yesterday  at  4 :45,  chow  at  five, 
broke  camp  at  five-thirty  and  began  loading  our 
trucks  in  the  midst  of  a  cold  driving  rain  that  had 
soaked  us  through  in  a  couple  of  hours.  We  had 
seven  truck-loads  of  camp  equipment,  which  had  to 
be  repacked  in  two  baggage  cars — about  ten  tons  in 
all — 180  seabags,  110  mattresses  and  bed  rolls,  110 
cots,  fifteen  trunks,  twenty  bags,  twenty  boxes,  our 
three  galley-ranges,  the  paymaster's  safe  (which 
alone  weighs  1,200  pounds)  and  ourselves,  nine  offi- 
cers and  ninety-four  men.  We  got  loaded  with 
about  twenty  minutes  to  spare. 

"We  occupied  three  third-class  coaches  for  the 
men  and  one  first-class  for  the  officers,  two  baggage 
cars  and  twelve  freight  cars.  Our  trip  was  tire- 
somely  slow :  twelve  hours  for  180  miles.  We  had 
chow  under  difficulties  from  our  own  rations,  which 
had  to  be  passed  from  car  window  to  car  window,  as 
the  cars  were  old-fashioned  and  had  no  corridors. 

At  O ,  we  telegraphed  ahead  for  some  hot  coffee 

for  all  hands,  and  we  in  our  compartment  got  some 
potage  and  an  omelet.  We  reached  here  at  10:15, 
or  rather  were  plunged  out  at  a  siding  about  three- 


BASE    HOSPITAL  213 

quarters  of  a  mile  away.  Having  unloaded  the 
sleeping  and  mess  gear,  and  having  set  up  a  working 
substitute  for  a  hospital,  our  men  went  to  Doctor 

G 's  American  Hospital  and  we  officers  to  the 

Hotel  M .     It  is  reputed  one  of  the  two  best 

hotels  in  the  city,  but  does  not  live  up  to  our  ideas 
of  modernity:  the  rooms  have  running  water  (no 
baths)  and  good  beds  and  clean  sheets,  but  there 
were  inconveniences  not  to  be  overlooked.  I  got  to 
bed  at  twelve  in  my  underclothes  and  slept  like  a  log. 
It  seemed  queer  to  be  between  sheets  again. 

"Oct.  ip — Went  early  to  see  the  buildings  that  we 
are  thinking  of  turning  into  a  part  of  our  permanent 
hospital.    The  prospect  not  encouraging. 

''Oct.  25 — We  have  been  here  just  a  week,  but 
have  made  little  progress,  because  we  can  not  make 
the  dear  old  Mother  Superior  of  the  Convent  agree 
to  vacate,  and  as  yet  we  lack  the  authority  to  put  her 
out.  We  have  told  her  that  it  is  tres  deplorable  that 
our  government  should  send  us  to  take  care  of 
French  blesses  as  well  as  our  own,  and  yet  that  the 
French  should  refuse  to  give  us  suitable  quarters. 
She  says : 

"  Tf  you  put  us  out,  I  and  my  children  will  have 
no  home.' 

"But  we  must  get  her  out  or  we  shall  have  no  hos- 
pital ! 

"Oct.  28 — Hospital  situation  in  statu  quo,  and  we 
are  fearful  lest  the  delay  in  completely  acquiring  the 
convent  means  checkmate.     Yet  we  go  along  and 


214  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

plan  just  the  same,  and  have  a  working  institution 
at  the  place  where  we  settled  on  arrival.  We  yester- 
day went  through  the  Villa  Maria,  a  fifteen-room 
house  which  we  thought  might  do  for  nurses'  quar- 
ters— owned  by  a  countess.  Yesterday  the  price 
was  250  francs  a  month :  to-day,  400 !  No  gas,  elec- 
tricity or  baths,  to  install  which  will  cost  four  or  five 
hundred  dollars. 

"During  the  last  three  days,  I  have  been  looking 
for  apartments  for  myself  and  roommates — a  diffi- 
cult job — scarce  and  on  the  whole  poor,  dirty,  unsan- 
itary, and  practically  none  has  bath, 

"Oct.  2Q — A  full  and  harrowing  day.  I  got  up  at 
6  A.  M.,  because  we  had  a  message  last  night  that  our 
nurses  would  arrive  at  nine,  and  they  had  to  break 
out  beds,  chairs,  linen,  etc.,  and  install  them  in  the 
Villa  Maria,  By  8:30,  we  had  forty  beds  broken 
out,  as  well  as  mattresses,  pillows,  sheets  and  china, 
the  house  swept  down  and  hot  coffee  and  sand- 
wiches ready. 

"I,  however,  never  got  there,  although  I  had 
pushed  up  my  'sick-call'  to  7  a,  m,,  and  was  just 
finished  at  8:15  when  a  'phone-call  ordered  me  to 
send  an  ambulance  to  the  dock  to  bring  in  one  dead 
man,  five  badly  wounded  and  three  mental  cases,  I 
was  detailed  down  with  R to  meet  them, 

"When  they  arrived,  we  learned  that  they  were 
survivors — some  of  them  having  been  on  the  An- 
tilles when  she  was  torpedoed  a  week  ago  and  hav- 
ing then  been  sent  homeward  by  the  Finland,  which 


BASE   HOSPITAL  215 

had  just  met  a  similar  fate.  There  was  one  com- 
pound fracture  of  the  leg,  some  broken  arms  and 
ribs,  an  amputation  of  fingers,  and  one  poor  chap, 
a  Spaniard,  who  had  been  injured  when  lowered  by 
a  rope,  the  knot  in  the  noose  of  which  had  so  pressed 
his  left  side  as  to  rupture  him  in  a  frightful  manner. 
He  died  a  few  hours  after  we  got  him  to  bed. 

"This  first  ambulance  load  was  only  one  of  three 
that  poured  in  during  the  next  two  hours — our  bed 
capacity  was  already  overtaxed.  Never  have  I  had 
a  greater  respect  for  a  well-balanced  nervous-system 
than  in  comparing  the  terror-stricken,  almost  gib- 
bering, group  with  those  who  could  be  brave  in  their 
suffering  and  even  laugh  at  their  misfortune.  .  .  . 

"Nov.  I — There  are  all  extremes  in  the  Navy. 
Yesterday,  we  operated  on  a  former  lieutenant  who 
began  as  a  common  seaman  in  the  merchant-service. 

This  morning,  R took  out  the  appendix  of  a 

common  seaman  whose  people  are  multi-millionaires 
back  home.  .  .  . 

"Nov.  3 — I  have  been  O.  D.  (officer  of  the  day) 
and  slept  at  the  hospital ;  had  a  wretched  night  with 
my  bronchitis.  About  midnight,  three  of  our  vene- 
real patients,  who  had  stolen  liberty,  came  in  and 
woke  the  whole  ward  with  their  rowing,  until  I  in- 
terfered with  hypos  of  a  fifth  of  a  grain  of  morphine 
for  each,  which  soon  had  them  so  sick  they  couldn't 
move.  We  threw  them  in  the  'head'  until,  two  hours 
later,  I  had  them  carried  to  bed  as  limp  as  dead 
men.  .  .  . 


216  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

"Nov.  7 — Call  came  in  to  have  our  three  ambu- 
lances stand  by  and  be  at  the  dock  at  9  p.  m.  to  meet 
survivors  from  the  Alcedo,  which  was  torpedoed  at 
1 :45  A.  M.  November  5th — that  they  were  bringing 
in  forty-two  out  of  a  crew  of  ninety-two.  The  Al- 
cedo was  once  owned  by  Childs  Drexel  of  Philadel- 
phia, and  is  now  commanded  by  Lieutenant-Com- 
mander C .     We   got   out   ambulances   at  the 

wharf,  and,  taking  our  emergency  kits,  three  of  us 
went  aboard  the  S.  P.  20  and  started  out  to  meet 
the  French  destroyer  that  was  to  bring  the  sur- 
vivors. Very  exciting  going  out  the  darkened  har- 
bour as  far  as  the  submarine-net,  where  we  lay-to 
for  a  half -hour.  Then  we  were  signalled  to  return, 
and  almost  immediately  the  tiny  destroyer  came  in 
and  docked. 

''We  took  off  the  nine  men  in  the  worst  shape  and 
sent  to  an  armed  yacht  about  thirty-one  who  were 
able  to  walk  and  for  whom  we  had  no  room.  We 
gave  them  all  a  swig  of  w^iiskey  before  we  left.  I 
helped  off  one  man  with  a  terrible  gash  starting 
from  just  above  and  to  the  left  of  his  left  eye  and 
extending  down  to  his  cheek.  His  face  was  caked 
with  blood,  and  he  was  in  bad  shape.  I  put  my  over- 
coat on  him  and  got  him  up  to  my  ambulance.  He 
turned  out  to  ht  Frazier  Harrison,  whom  I  knew  in 
Philadelphia. 

"At  the  hospital,  we  had  everything  in  readiness, 
twelve  nurses  as  an  extra  detail.  Every  one  got  mor- 
phine and  atropine  to  ease  the  shock,  a  hot  alcohol 


^ 


CO 


BASE    HOSPITAL  217. 

rub,  hot  blankets  and  bottles.  I  sewed  up  Harrison's 
wound  and  sprayed  it  with  dichlorainet,  and  thus 
far  he  has  escaped  an  infection.  He  will  always 
bear  a  scar.  Among  the  lot  was  Drexel  Paul,  who 
wasn't  even  hurt,  but  suffered  from  exposure.  A 
few  broken  bones,  sprained  joints,  contusions,  etc., 
made  up  the  rest  of  the  cases. 

"It  seems  that  at  11 :45,  they  were  bringing  up 
the  rear  of  a  convoy  on  a  moonlight  night  when  they 
saw  the  wake  of  a  torpedo  about  two  hundred  yards 
away  coming  directly  toward  them,  and  Paul,  who 
was  on  duty,  sounded  General  Quarters  and  swung 
the  boat  hard  around  so  that  she  was  struck  on  the 
port  side  just  abaft  the  bridge,  which  probably  influ- 
enced the  casualty  list,  for  had  she  been  struck 
twenty  feet  farther  after,  it  would  have  exploded 
her  ammunition  and  there  would  have  been  only 
splinters  left. 

"Harrison  was  in  his  bunk  and  was  blown  up  on 
deck — at  least,  he  doesn't  remember  getting  out  of 
his  bunk ! — and  was  found  unconscious  and  thrown 
on  to  a  raft  by  a  seaman  named  Quinn  to  whom  he 
owes  his  life.  They  got  some  boats  cut  free,  not 
launched,  and  after  being  in  the  water  two  hours, 
they  had  the  boats  sufficiently  baled  out  to  start 
'home,' — home  being  they  knew  not  where. 

"This  crowd  of  forty-two  came  in  one  whale-boat 

and  two  dories.    Captain  C set  a  course  by  the 

stars  and  the  flash  of  a  lighthouse  below  the  horizon, 
and  they  rowed  about  forty  miles  in  the  open  sea. 


218  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

through  fortunately  smooth  water.  About  3  p.  m. 
the  next  day,  two  French  aeroplanes  sighted  them 
and  went  back  and  notified  the  destroyer,  which 
picked  them  up  at  5  p.  m.  some  fifty  miles  from  here. 

"We  received  word  that  some  additional  surviv- 
ors were  coming  in  by  the  9  :40  train,  and  we  had 
our  ambulances  waiting,  but  only  two  of  them  re- 
ceived hospital  attention.  They  were  an  odd-looking 
lot  of  men  in  their  peasants'  frocks,  caps  and  wooden 
shoes,  loaned  to  them  by  French  peasants  at  the  spot 
where  they  landed.  This  leaves  the  casualty-list  at 
25,  which  is  remarkably  low  in  the  circumstances. 

"Nov.  II — We  have  finally  landed  our  real  hos- 
pital— not  tfie  convent  we've  been  using,  but  another 
— or,  rather,  a  former  one.  It  is  about  a  mile  and  a 
half  from  the  harbour  and  two  miles  from  my  quar- 
ters. It  is  a  big,  rambling,  much  cut-up  building,  in 
which  we  can  get  four  hundred,  perhaps  five  hun- 
dred, beds  for  patients.  Years  ago  it  was  a  Car- 
melite nunnery;  during  the  early  part  of  the  war,  it 
was  a  French  hospital;  since  then  it  has  served 
strange  purposes. 

"We  made  the  transfer  yesterday.  To  clean  the 
three  years'  accumulation  of  dirt,  fifty  men  and 
thirty  nurses  went  to  work  with  mops  and  pails  of 
water.  During  the  night,  forty  tons  of  equipment, 
including  300  beds  and  the  200  field-cots  for  our  en- 
listed men,  were  put  in.  Early  in  the  morning,  our 
galley  ranges  served  breakfast-chow  at  the  old  stand, 
were  then  broken  down,  carted  and  set  up  in  this 


BASE    HOSPITAL  219 

new  place  a  mile  away  and  were  at  work  by  5  p.  m. 
The  whole  job  was  accomplished  in  twelve  hours  by 
our  own  force  alone,  using  two  ambulances,  a  motor- 
truck, two  horse  trucks  and  a  touring-car.  We  have 
now  to  build  a  few  temporary  and  one  or  two  per- 
manent buildings,  run  in  gas  and  electricity,  do 
some  painting,  arrange  for  heat,  adjust  sanitation 
(which,  at  present,  is  indescribable)  and  remodel 
certain  rooms. 

"Nov.  14 — To  our  intense  disgust,  we  were  to-day 
ordered  to  transfer  half  our  patients  to  our  new  hos- 
pital, although  we  are  by  no  means  ready  for  them. 
But  it  went  through,  and  the  reason  became  appar- 
ent— to  make  room  for  approximately  one  hundred 
sick  to  be  taken  off  the  transports  that  have  just 
safely  arrived  here. 

"...  I  assisted  R in  three  operations,  an 

appendix  and  two  hernias,  and  to-day  I  had  sick-call 
and  rounds  at  the  old  hospital,  which  took  all  a.  m. 
This  afternoon,  I  was  ordered  to  the  dock  with  our 
three  ambulances  to  take  off  and  sort  out  patients 
from  the  transports — thirty-seven  cases  of  measles 
and  one  meningitis  I  took  to  the  French  hospital — 
which  this  morning  had  1,269  patients;  five  pneu- 
monia and  a  dozen  mumps  to  our  own  place,  and  the 

surgical  and  social  cases  to  G 's.     I  must  go  to 

the  French  hospital  twice  a  day  to  look  after  the 
well-being  of  our  thirty-eight  cases  there,  in  addition 
to  my  daily  sick-call  at  our  place  and  O.  D.  duty 
once  a  week  at  G 's, 


220  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

"Nov.  22 — Been  sick  abed  for  four  days.  Lay  it 
not  to  novelty  or  degree  of  the  work  here,  but  to  this 
beastly  chmate,  whereof  the  damp  vapors  creep 
stealthily  beneath  one's  skin.  Then,  too,  by  some 
miscalculation,  our  C.  O.  gets  his  orders  to  one  man 
a  little  confused,  so  that,  instead  of  twenty-four 
hours  straight  duty  every  third  day,  which  isn't  so 
bad,  you  may  get  elected  for  seventy-two  hours 
straight  duty,  and  no  liberty — and  that  was  me ! 

"The  day  after  getting  those  first  thirty-eight 
cases  into  the  French  hospital,  I  picked  up  four  ad- 
ditional cases  of  measles  at  one  of  the  French  bar- 
racks, which  had  broken  out  during  the  night  among 
the  two  hundred  American  darky  stevedores  there. 
I  got  them  into  their  beds  safely.  Made  the  rounds 
of  the  rest  and  found  them  so  homesick  and  down  at 
the  mouth !  And  I  don't  wonder :  twenty- four  hours 
after  reaching  the  French  coast,  they  find  them- 
selves in  a  French  contagious-hospital,  unable  to 
speak  or  understand  a  word  of  the  language,  their 
clothes,  equipment,  mess-gear,  and  toilet-articles 
taken  from  them.  These  are  to  be  disinfected  and 
returned  on  their  discharge,  but  they  do  not  know 
that,  and  these  and  numerous  other  details  have  to 
be  explained  to  them.  Some  are  doubtful  cases,  but 
all  have  to  suffer  in  a  threatened  epidemic  like  this. 

"I  encouraged  them  to  put  the  best  face  they  could 
on  the  matter,  that  I  would  see  they  got  a  square 
deal,  would  make  note  of  any  legitimate  complaints, 
etc.    I  was  besieged  to  send  cables,  buy  them  neces- 


BASE    HOSPITAL  221 

sary  toilet-articles,  all  of  which  I  did  in  my  liberty 
time ;  and  at  lunch  that  day,  I  got  Chaplain  Stephen- 
son and  the  Red  Cross  interested  and  on  the  job,  so 
that  in  the  afternoon  we  took  the  poor  lads  some 
smokes  and  eats  and  arranged  for  these  to  be  dupli- 
cated every  so  often. 

"Friday  morning,  I  had  made  two  trips  to  the 
French  hospital  before  ten  o'clock,  when  I  went  on 
twenty- four  hours'  duty  as  O.  D.  at  our  own  place, 
and  then  my  troubles  began  in  earnest.  The  usual 
day  of  vexing  details  :  after  8 :30  p.  m.  rounds,  I  shut 
down  the  ward  and  gave  definite  orders  to  my  corps- 
man  not  to  disturb  me  except  in  a  real  necessity ;  but 
he  was  green  and  over-anxious  and  got  me  out  four 
times  between  11  and  4  o'clock.  At  the  last  call,  I 
just  stayed  up,  determined  to  get  my  full  quota  of 
sleep  the  following  night.  Saturday,  I  made  three 
trips  to  the  French  hospital,  was  ordered  a  couple 
of  additional  duties  and  was  already  in  the  big  sleep 
at  10  p.  M.,  when  I  was  roused  by  a  messenger  from 

G ,  ordering  me  to  take  a  S.  P.  boat  at  7  a.  m., 

•and  make  a  tour  of  the  fleet,  getting  off  all  the  con- 
tagious and  the  ordinary  hospital  cases. 

"The  bonne  overzealously  got  me  up  at  5:15.     I 

wandered  up  to  G 's,  made  quick  rounds  and 

then  beat  it  down  to  the  dock.    It  was  still  quite  en- 
tirely dark,  a  very  dense  fog  and  damp  and  cold. 

We  picked  up  the  transport  V ,  with  her  bow 

crushed  in  from  having  rammed  the  A ,  then  the 

Q—  and  finally  the  A .     In  all  I  collected 


222  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

thirty-three  cases,  twenty-six  of  which  were  measles. 
On  the  way  in,  I  stopped  a  few  moments  at  the 

P ,  the  mother-ship.     I  got  thoroughly  chilled 

and  came  in  to  dock  with  my  teeth  chattering.  I  had 
been  furnished  with  only  one  ambulance  and  one 
touring-car,  which  meant  three  trips  with  each  be- 
fore I  had  all  the  cases  under  cover.    I  then  reported 

to  C ,  who  ordered  me  down  to  relieve  as  O.  D., 

which  I  did,  and  the  following  morning  I  had  a 
temperature  of  103. 

"One  thing  consoles  me :  Our  hospital  has  prog- 
ressed with  pretty  good  success,  and  we  are  able  to 
do  and  are  doing  good  work  of  a  routine  kind,  as 
in  a  civil  hospital  at  home.  There  is  very  much  to 
be  done  and  will  be  for  many  weeks  to  come,  yet 
the  essentials  are  completed.  Our  operating-room 
is  in  good  order  and  quite  busy.  The  X-Ray  outfit 
is  not  here,  except  some  apparatus,  which  we  got 
from  the  Red  Cross  in  Paris.  The  laboratory  is  in 
fair  running  order,  but  much  of  the  necessary  equip- 
ment failed  to  materialize.  I  am  getting  a  pretty 
fair  gastro-intestinal  service,  especially  with  the  de- 
stroyer men.  We  are  useful — and  that's  what  we 
came  over  here  to  be." 

The  unconscious  hero  of  this  log,  I  ought  to  add, 
recovered  and  is  still  continuing  his  excellent  work. 
What  he  has  done  is  what  is  being  done  by  hundreds 
of  our  naval  surgeons  in  France,  and  the  story  of 
the  hospital  that  he  helped  to  bring  into  being  and 
to  conduct  is  the  story  of  a  score  of  others. 


On  a  night  I  know,  in  a  bay  I  know 

(But  don't  you  dare  inquire!) 
Hell  hleiv  up  from  the  ocean's  floor 

And  set  the  roof  afire; 

And  I'd  tell  you  ivhere  and  I'd  tell  you  when, 
But  Washington  says:    "No" — 

You  must  not  learn  hozv  sailormen 
Go  when  it's  time  to  go. 

Yet  some  were  drozvned  in  the  liquid  flame 

And  burned  in  the  flaming  sea. 
And  rescues  done  ere  rise  of  sun 

That  no  one  thought  could  be; 

For  braver  men  than  we  had  then 

No  history  can  shoiv; 
And  their  names  I'd  say  if  I  had  my  way — 

But  Mr.  Creel  says:  "No." 

— The  Great  Forgetters. 


PART  FIVE 

Admirals  All 

CHAPTER  XV 
fire! 

IT  was  only  shortly  before  the  end  of  my  nine 
months'  stay  in  France  that  the  horribly  burned 
survivors  of  the  American  cargo-steamer,  the  Flor- 
ence H,  which  was  blown  up  near  the  coast  of  that 
country,  were  pronounced  by  their  physicians  to  be 
in  a  condition  permitting  them  to  tell  their  stories  of 
an  event  that  cost  so  many  lives  and  that  proved  a 
test,  splendidly  met,  of  the  American  Navy's  best 
traditions.  A  formal  French,  and  an  informal 
American,  naval  inquiry  was  straightway  made,  and 
I  was  fortunate  enough  to  have  that  inquiry  thrown 
open  to  me.  Because  of  the  hitherto  mostly  con- 
cealed stories  of  heroism  there  elicited  by  the  exam- 
inations, I  want  to  tell  something  of  the  catastrophe 
involving  them.  That  heroism  has,  so  far,  been  un- 
surpassed, even  in  the  records  of  this  war  in  which 
physical  bravery  is  so  common,  and  my  only  regret 
is  that,  though  the  names  of  the  rescuing  ships  and 
of  their  boats'  crews  were  mentioned  by  Admiral 
Wilson  in  his  public  commendation  of  their  actions, 
and  though  my  mention  of  the  same  names  was  per- 

224 


FIRE!  225 

mitted  by  the  naval  censor  at  our  Base  in  France, 
Mr.  George  Creel's  Committee  on  Public  Informa- 
tion has  asked  me  to  suppress  most  of  them  here. 

Although  only  just  now  to  be  published  in  detail, 
the  story  of  the  Florence  H,  which  formerly  flew 
the  French  flag,  is  soon  told.  A  merchant  ship,  offi- 
cered and  manned  by  civilians,  she  carried  an  armed 
guard  of  twenty-two.  In  her  four  holds  she  had  a 
cargo  of  several  million  dollars — many  tons  of  steel 
plate  and  explosives,  the  latter  packed  in  metal  cases 
supported  by  wooden  frames.  She  took  on  coal  at 
Carney's  Point,  in  the  Delaware  River,  and  then  set 
sail  for  France.  Off  the  French  coast,  she  joined  a 
convoy,  which  anchored  close  to  shore,  about  a 
day's  sail  from  our  Naval  Base,  at  close  upon  9 :30 
of  a  spring  evening.  Witnesses  agree  that  there 
was  no  powder  on  her  hatches  and  that  these  were 
kept  securely  closed  after  leaving  Philadelphia. 

There  were  several  ships  in  that  convoy,  and  a 
guard  of  American  destroyers,  American  patrol- 
boats  and  two  French  craft.  The  sea  was  smooth, 
but  the  night  dark.  The  Florence  H  was  the  third 
boat  in  the  column.  Four  men,  including  the  cap- 
tain, none  of  whom  was  saved,  were  on  watch  or 
lookout.  At  10 :45  p.  m.,  without  any  preliminary 
smoke  being  noticed.  No.  2  hatch  exploded.  The 
deck  rose  in  air,  the  starboard  side  was  blown  out. 
In  about  twenty  minutes,  the  Florence  H,  settling  by 
the  head  with  a  list  to  the  ripped  quarter,  sank  in  a 
mass  of  flames.     The  water  receiving  her  was  so 


226  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

shallow  that  her  stack  and  two  masts  are  visible  at 
low  tide.  Only  thirty-two  of  the  seventy-seven  men 
aboard  were  saved. 

From  the  eyes  of  none  that  saw  it  will  the  in- 
tense picture  of  the  disaster  ever  be  blotted,  but 
perhaps  the  best  description  is  that  of  a  U.  S. 
Naval  officer,.  Captain  P.  L,  Wilson,  of  the  near-by 

W ,   commanding  the   guardian  ships,   a  man 

familiar  with  the  horrors  of  war  at  sea.  Accord- 
ing to  this,  with  no  warning  save  a  low  rumble,  the 
night  suddenly  became  lurid  day.     Then : 

"There  was  ejected  upward  for  almost  three 
hundred  feet  from  that  burning  ship,"  Captain 
Wilson  says,  "a  mass  of  flaming  powder-cases  and 
wreckage,  which  spread  out  to  leeward  like  several 
enormous  rafts,  so  thick  were  they  packed.  In  the 
midst  of  these  jammed  masses  of  wreckage,  and  for 
a  considerable  area  all  over  the  vicinity,  numerous 
cases  were  exploding  every  second  and  shooting" 
their  flame  and  gasses  twenty  feet  in  the  air.  These 
explosions  resembled  enormous  blow-torches  and 
made  a  whistling  noise.  Next,  the  fixed  ammunition 
on  deck  began  to  explode,  showing  up  like  fireworks, 
and  shortly  afterwards  the  guns  went  off.  I  could 
not  believe  that  any  living  being  had  escaped  from 
this  burning  furnace." 

Some,  however,  had — God  knows  how.  Between 
the  detonations  came,  out  of  the  liquid  fire,  their 
shrill  shrieks  of  agony.  Here  sailors  already  mu- 
tilated had  to  swim  under  water,  and  when  they 


FIRE!  227 

rose  for  breath,  it  was  to  thrust  their  heads  into  a 
molten  surface;  there,  in  that  mass  of  wreckage, 
they  clung  to  heaving  boxes — boxes  of  flame  that 
now  banged  against  one  another,  crushing  their  hu- 
man freight,  and  again  exploded,  blowing  the  des- 
perate men  to  atoms. 

A  badly  burned  seaman  named  Collins  told  me: 
"I  had  been  asleep  in  a  cabin  on  the  upper  deck.  I 
got  my  underclothes  on,  ran  out  and  dove  into  the 
water.  Whenever  I'd  stick  my  head  up,  I'd  stick  it 
into  flames.  I  got  a  bit  away  and  grabbed  some 
pieces  of  wood,  but  they  caught  fire.  Kegs  were  ex- 
ploding all  around.  The  yells  of  the  men  were  hor- 
rible. I  found  a  boat  and  climbed  in,  and  then  it 
got  afire,  too.    The  S rescued  me." 

Percy  D.  West,  of  Edgartown,  Massachusetts, 
had  been  serving  as  quartermaster  and  was  awak- 
ened from  his  sleep  in  a  cabin  under  the  bridge,  not 
by  any  explosion,  but  by  the  flames.  *T  got  into  my 
trousers,  and  I  had  two  sweaters  on,"  he  said  to  me. 
"I  woke  my  cabin-mate.  I  jerked  open  the  door,  and 
a  blast  of  fire  shot  in.  Then  a  back-draft  blew  that 
way,  and  I  tried  to  drag  my  mate  through  the  door ; 
but  he  was  kind  of  dazed  and  wouldn't  come.  I 
jumped  through  the  flames  and  overboard.  The 
next  thing  I  knew,  I  was  floating  in  the  water  with 
a  powder-cask  under  each  arm." 

The  feet  of  many  were  burned  because  the  deck 
was  aflame,  and  the  speed  of  the  fire  was  fatal. 
"By  the  time  I  got  on  deck,"  Seaman  L.  C.  Johnson 


228  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

testified  at  the  inquiry,  "the  whole  aft  of  the  ship 
was  afire — gun-platforms  and  all."  The  Finnish 
boatswain,  Carl  Linder,  was  thrown  from  his  bunk 
in  darkness  and  staggered  on  deck;  as  he  swam 
away,  the  stern  blew  up.  Water-tender  Peter 
Drulle,  bunking  with  three  other  men,  found  the 
four  ports  and  four  doors  of  their  quarters  jammed ; 
he  smashed  one  of  the  doors,  plunged  through 
flames  to  the  deck  and  reached  the  water  as  the  ship 
sank.  John  B.  Watson,  the  chief  engineer,  told  the 
story  with  unconscious  dramatic  power: 

"She  just  burned  up  and  melted  in  about  twenty 
minutes." 

It  is  almost  impossible  to  describe  the  scene.  The 
night's  walls  of  blackness  were  pushed  far  aside  by 
a  blistering  glare  that  was  blindingly  intense. 
Against  that  the  convoy  was  silhouetted,  afloat  on  a 
sea  that  was  little  more  than  a  lake  of  liquid  fire, 
cluttered  by  burning  wreckage.  The  victims,  blown 
overboard  from  the  Florence  H,  would  come  to  the 
surface  and  try  to  float  by  clinging  to  one  of  the 
hundreds  of  powder-cases  bobbing  all  about;  the 
wooden  frame  of  the  case  would  flash  into  light — 
the  contents  would  explode  and  tear  its  victims  into 
shreds.  The  reverberations  were  as  loud  and  as  con- 
stant as  a  bombardment.  Swimmers  had  to  take 
refuge  by  swimming  far  under  water;  when  forced 
to  rise  for  air,  they  would  draw  into  their  lungs 
great  draughts  of  fire. 

"An'  I  had  to  swim  slow,"  one  of  the  crew  later 


1^ 


\iix 


/ 


"^^^'^"^        "^ 


?L!!if*'*~iftLZ'^ 


(p)   Committee  ou   Public  Information 
The   Missouri 


FIRE!  229 

told  me  in  hospital,  "because  I  was  tryin'  to  carry 
my  buddy  with  me,  an'  he  don't  know  how  to  swim 
at  all." 

The  guarding  yachts  were  wooden — they  dared 
not  venture  near.  The  destroyers,  laden  with  deadly 
depth-charges,  were  in  almost  equal  danger,  and 
therefore  Captain  Wilson,  believing  all  the  crew  of 
the  Florence  H  beyond  hope,  signalled  the  destroyer 

S to  be  careful — she  was  on  the  edge  of  the 

spreading  liquid  fire.  At  that  moment,  her  skipper, 
Captain  H.  S.  Haislip,  "heard  some  cries  in  the 
water,"  and  there  followed  an  action  that  should 
have  place  in  every  history  of  the  American  Navy. 

He  ran  his  ship — its  deck  is  not  five  feet  above 
the  water  and  was  covered  with  high  explosives — 
directly  into  the  flames,  in  order  to  cleave,  among 
the  bursting  powder-casks,  a  path  for  boats  of  res- 
cue.   He  led,  and  the  other  destroyers,  the  Wh 

and  the  T followed. 

The  S came  close  up  under  the  stern  of  the 

Florence  H.  Her  paint  peeled.  Once  she  was  so 
compressed  amid  the  exploding  wreckage  that  she 
could  not  maneuver.  She  threw  out  lines;  her 
sailors  dove  overboard  to  hold  up  and  rescue  blinded 
survivors.  Her  crew  lowered  one  of  their  men  by 
the  ankles,  and  he  snatched  a  burning  victim  from 
the  burning  sea.  She  sent  out  a  life-boat — Fleet 
Chaplain  Father  M was  in  it — which,  since  row- 
ing became  immediately  impossible,  had  to  pole  its 
way  by  shoving  with  the  oars  against  those  smolder- 


230  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

ing  powder-cases.    The  motor-dory  of  the  Wh 

with  its  inflammable  fuel  in  constant  danger,  worked 
close  by. 

One  may  quickly  summarize  the  results  of  the 
four  days'  examination  of  survivors.  I  quote  from 
the  testimony  of  nine : 

"She's  never  had  any  bunker-fires." 

"There  was  no  preceding  smell  of  smoke." 

"There'd  been  no  coal  on  fire,  and  there  was  no 
coal-gas  explosion.  The  noise  was  a  rumbling  sound 
— felt  as  if  it  was  internal." 

"The  noise  was  a  continuous  roar.  It  made  me 
think  of  sky-rockets,  only  much  louder — a  sort  of 
trembling  sound.  I'd  been  on  the  radio  from  four 
to  eight,  but  hadn't  heard  any  subs  talking." 

"I  do  not  think  it  was  a  torpedo." 

"It  seemed  to  me  like  inside  work." 

"I've  been  torpedoed  before.  This  wasn't  simi- 
lar.   I  think  it  was  an  inside  job." 

"The  Luckenback  people  coaled  her." 

"It  don't  seem  possible  when  we  were  imder  way 
that  a  man  could  open  those  hatches." 

The  commander  of  the  convoying  C said  that 

three  of  his  officers  "familiar  with  torpedo-effects" 
did  not  consider  this  the  work  of  a  torpedo.   The 

captain  of  the  courageous  S thinks  the  disaster 

due  to  either  an  "internal  explosion  or  spontaneous 
combustion."     The  skipper  of  the  W reports: 

"A  few  moments  before  10 :50  p.  m.,  it  was  noted 
that  some  one  on  the  bridge  of  the  Florence  H  was 
signalling  with  a  signal  searchlight.    Our  attention 


FIRE!  231 

was  directed  toward  this  signalling.  Suddenly, 
without  previous  warning,  the  Florence  H  burst  into 
brilliant  flame." 

Commander  Franck  T.  Evans,  U.  S.  N.,  repre- 
sented the  United  States  at  the  inquiry.  He  reports 
to  Rear- Admiral  Wilson : 

*'I  am  of  the  opinion  that  the  ship  was  not  tor- 
pedoed. It  will  be  noted  that  there  is  no  evidence 
of  any  geyser  of  water,  that  there  was  no  shock  felt 
on  board  neighbouring  vessels,  and  that  of  the  two 
witnesses  who  were  in  the  engine-room  at  the  time 
of  the  explosion,  one,  who  was  torpedoed  twice  be- 
fore, states  positively  that  the  ship  was  not  torpe- 
doed, while  the  testimony  of  the  other  seems  to 
indicate  that  the  ship  was  not  torpedoed.  The  evi- 
dence shows  that  there  were  no  steam-leads  in  the 
cargo-spaces,  but  that  electric  leads  in  iron  conduit 
passed  through  the  'tween  decks.  The  evidence  also 
shows  that  there  was  coal  stowed  under  the  powder 
in  No.  2  hold.  A  short-circuit  of  electric  outlet,  or 
a  spontaneous  combustion  may  have  caused  sufficient 
fire  to  cause  the  cargo  to  explode.  From  the  investi- 
gation, I  am  inclined  to  the  opinion  that  the  vessel 
was  destroyed  by  an  infernal  machine  placed  either 
in  the  coal  in  No.  2  hold  or  in  the  cargo  there.'* 

Whether  that  opinion  be  right  or  wrong  may  pos- 
sibly never  be  known,  but,  no  matter  what  the  cause 
of  the  explosion,  the  heroism  of  the  rescuers  will  be 
long  remembered.  They  proved  themselves  the 
legitimate  inheritors  of  our  Navy's  reputation  for 
bravery,  the  defenders  of  its  best  traditions. 


So  you're  goin'  to  France,  hey,  to  "save?'  her?, 
Then  listen,  my  hearty,  an'  hark; 

Take  advice  from  a  gob 

That  has  been  on  the  job: 
No  lip  to  our  ally,  Jen  Dark! 
She's  a  sort  of  a  kind  of  a  sister 
Who's  gettin'  a  rather  rough  deal, 

So  she's  sensitive,  and 

You  had  best  understand 
The  way  that  the  sensitives  feel. 

CHORUS : 

The  second-story  men  have  been 

A-lootin'  of  her  shop; 
They've  eaten  half  the  stock-in-hand 

An'  killed  the  village  cop; 
She's  stood  'em  off,  an'  stands  'em  still; 

She's  shozun  'em  she  can  give 
As  good  as  she  is  gettin',  but 

It  makes  her  sensitive. 

Don't  think  'cause  she  does  a  thing  diff'rent 
That  her  ivays  is  wrong  and  yourn  right; 
She  gets  there  unblown. 
Though  she  goes  it  alone — 
An'  Lord,  but  that  ivoman  can  fight! 
Keep  in  mind:  ivhen  we  needed  a  helper 
(As  history  makes  the  remark), 

Why,  we  knelt  down  to  pray 
For  the  new  U.  S.  A., 
And  were  made  and  were  saved  by  Jen  Dark. 

CHORUS : 

The  second-story  men,  etc. 

Of  course,  she's  a  language  that's  phony. 
And  of  course  she's  hard  up  for  the  cash; 
But  her  folks  have  all  bled 
(Why,  they're  most  of  'em  dead!) 
And  they  saved  you,  young  Jackie,  from  smash. 


So  remember:  a  phrase  that  is  pleasant. 
Goes  further  than  one  that  shozvs  bile — ■ 
//  you  haven't  quite  heard, 
Or  don't  knozv  the  French  word. 
Just  bow  to  Miss  Jennie  an'  smile. 

CHORUS : 

The  second-story  men,  etc. 

Do  you  think  she's  a  sort  of  a  Tomboy 
Just  noiv?   Well,  is  that  a  disgrace? 
It's  a  matter  of  pride! 
She  zvill  scrap  by  your  side: 
Don't  slap  a  good  pal  in  the  face! 
Then  here's  to  our  sister,  the  fighter; 
We'll  save  her,  zvho  saved  us.  But  hark: 
Since  we're  in  the  same  boat. 
We  must  not  get  her  goat — 
Here's  luck  to  Miss  Genevieve  Dark! 

CHORUS  : 

So,  when  you  go  to  rout  the  thieves. 

Just  turn  to  her  an'  say: 
"We'd  like  to  lend  a  hand.  Miss,  if 

You  please"  (that's  "civil  play") 
An'  zvhen  she  grins  and  ansivers  "Oui" 

(That's  "Yes"),  zvhy,  you  remark: 
*'0h,  mercy!"  (which  is  "Thank  You")  and 

"Jlere's  to  you,  Jennie  Dark !" 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  PLUCKIEST  MAN  ALIVE 

ONE   day  last   spring  an   American   Admiral 
shocks  hands  with  a  mere  warrant-officer,  a 
simple  non-com,,  of  the  French  Navy. 

"I'm  glad  to  meet  you,"  said  the  Admiral;  "you're 
the  kind  of  man  that  makes  me  proud  to  be  a  sailor." 

The  speaker  was  Rear-Admiral  Wilson.  The  per- 
son addressed  was  Alexis  Pulu  Hen,  Quartermaster, 
second-class.  But  Pulu  Hen  had  just  performed  one 
of  the  most  wonderful  feats  of  seamanship  ever  re- 
corded. 

A  few  lines  of  cabled  matter  told  that  this  quar- 
termaster of  a  tiny  submarine-chaser  won  the 
mcdaille  militaire  by  bringing  his  craft  across  the  At- 
lantic in  the  face  of  enormous  difficulties — and  that 
was  about  all.  Really,  he  has  astonished  the  entire 
seafaring  world ;  he  has  performed  the  impossible. 

His  boat  is  a  cockleshell;  she  is  a  sixty-tonner. 
She  was  never  meant  to  go  far  to  sea,  in  the  first 
place.  When  the  need  of  tonnage  grew  acute,  she 
was  impressed  for  use  as  one  of  the  several  guards 
for  a  convoy,  but  she  was  regarded  as  rather  risky, 
and  nobody  would  have  dreamed  of  her  sailing 
alone.    She  burned  oil,  and  could  store  but  little  of 

234 


THE    PLUCKIEST    MAN    ALIVE     235 

that,  had  no  other  means  of  locomotion  and,  in  a 
long  journey,  always  had  to  be  restocked  by  a  com- 
panion-boat. She  was  scantily  provisioned;  she 
boasted  just  one  compass  and  no  sextant;  she  was 
beneath  the  dignity  of  being  commanded  by  a  com- 
missioned officer  trained  in  navigation. 

Then,  one  day,  she  found  herself  alone  near  the 
United  States  side  of  the  Atlantic — and  started,  not 
back,  but  toward  France.  Six  weeks  overdue,  she 
was  reported  lost. 

The  oil  gave  out,  and  Pulu  Hen,  commanding, 
burned  the  salad-oil.  That  gave  out,  and  he  built 
masts  and  rigged  them  with  blankets  and  coverlets 
for  sails.  He  steered  by  dead  reckoning.  He 
nightly  corrected  his  crazy  compass  by  the  stars — 
when  any  were  visible.  He  passed  two  or  three 
ships,  but,  though  they  saw  his  distress-signals,  they 
fled,  fearing  some  submarine-trick.  The  food 
ran  desperately  low,  but  he  made  the  crew  husband 
the  remainder.  Storms  thrashed  the  tiny  craft: 
she  weathered  them.    Pulu  Hen — 

But  here  is  my  rough  translation  of  his  log,  in 
which  the  facts  are  set  down  with  serene  unconcern 
of  their  revelation  of  heroism  and  skill : 

*'yth  January:  Got  underweigh  from  Bermuda  at 

8  o'clock.    Taken  in  tow  by  the  P ,  course  east 

by  compass.    Stationed  lookouts  and  set  the  watch 
in  threes. 

"gth  January:  Upon  pitching  to  a  very  heavy  sea, 
the  towline  broke.    The  passing  of  a  new  towline  is 


236  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

very  delicate  because  of  the  bad  state  of  the  sea  and 
the  weight  of  the  line,  which  is  a  heavy  Manila 
hawser, 

"loth  January:  The  breeze  freshened  during  the 
night,  and  the  sea  became  very  rough.  We  were 
pooped  by  many  heavy  seas,  which  carried  away  a 
box  containing  four  hundred  kilograms  of  coal  and 
eight  cases  of  gasolene. 

"13th  January:  The  weather  became  very  bad, 
with  a  heavy  sea.  The  tugboat  fell  into  the  trough 
of  the  sea  from  time  to  time,  then  resumed  her 
course  at  an  irregular  speed,  thus  towing  us  by 
jerks.  When  the  tug  fell  off,  the  chaser  was  usually 
in  the  trough,  rolling  perilously  from  side  to  side, 
which  caused  a  heavy  chafe  of  the  towline.  At  six 
o'clock,  the  towing-strap  and  painter  parted  and 
went  with  the  towboat.  It  was  very  difficult  to  start 
the  motors,  because  of  the  water  that  had  leaked  into 
the  engine-room.  At  eight  a.  m.^  the  motor  amid- 
ships was  started.    I  headed  toward  the  P (the 

towboat),  which  was  on  the  horizon.  At  11:30 
A.  M.^  I  lost  it  from  view,  and  the  convoy  had  com- 
pletely disappeared. 

"13th  January,  later :  The  weather  is  better.  At 
two  p.  M.,  I  perceived  a  tug  and  a  chaser  dead  ahead. 
I  increased  speed  in  order  to  overtake  them,  and  I 

recognized  the  H abreast  of  the  chaser  No. 

.     I  asked  her  my  bearings.   She  replied :  'We 

have  not  had  them  since  we  left  Bermuda.'  I  took 
a  position  astern  of  the  tug  and  abreast  of  the 


THE    PLUCKIEST    MAN    ALIVE     237 

chaser,  but  our  motor  stopped  frequently,  making 
it  difficult  for  me  to  keep  my  position. 

"14th  January:  At  four  o'clock  the  motors  stopped 
as  the  result  of  an  accident.  The  engineers  imme- 
diately set  to  work  to  repair  them.  I  lost  sight  of 
the  tug  and  the  chaser.  The  sea  became  very  unruly, 
and  we  shipped  a  great  many  seas.  I  hastily  had  a 
makeshift  sail  put  up  with  cover  of  the  dory  and  the 
bridge-screens,  and  thus  we  maneuvered  in  order  to 
be  less  maltreated  by  the  heavy  seas.  At  noon  the 
engine  was  started,  headed  due  east.  At  three 
o'clock,  we  again  sighted  the  tug  and  chaser  that 
we  had  hailed  yesterday.  We  headed  for  them  and 
fell  into  line  beside  the  former. 

"i^th  January:  I  asked  the  tug  to  tow  us  and  give 
us  some  lubricating-oil.  She  had  no  towline  left, 
and  she  could  not  give  us  any  oil.  At  four  p.  m., 
our  motor  stopped  as  a  result  of  being  overheated. 
I  hoisted  the  signal  'Ship  not  under  control.'  The 
chaser  and  the  tug  did  not  answer.  At  five  p.  m., 
I  lost  them  from  sight,  and  did  not  see  them  again 
after  that. 

"i6th  Janimry:  At  midnight,  the  engines  were 
started,  headed  eastward.  At  3  a.  m.,  another  acci- 
dent. At  3  :30,  I  caught  sight  of  the  lights  of  two 
vessels  on  the  port  side.  I  turned  on  two  red 
lights  on  the  masthead  and  signalled  to  them  with 
the  blinker.  They  did  not  answer,  and  I  lost  them 
from  view  a  few  moments  later. 

"I  had  the  holds  emptied,  as  the  water  had  reached 


238  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

a  depth  of  fifty  centimeters  in  them,  and  the  vessel 
was  leaking  badly  at  the  seams. 

"At  11 :50  A.  M.,  I  perceived  the  mast  of  a  small 
craft  to  the  northeast.  Considering  my  vessel  in  a 
critical  condition  on  account  of  the  accident  to  the 
motor  and  the  immediate  lack  of  lubricating-oil,  I 
fired  six  shots  with  my  gun  and  hoisted  distress 
signals.  I  received  no  response,  and  a  few  minutes 
later  nothing  was  to  be  seen. 

"At  noon  the  motor  was  started,  and  we  headed 
eastward.  Soon  after,  another  accident  occurred. 
The  engineer.  Petty  Officer  Faignou,  told  me  that 
the  lubricating-oil  had  given  out.  He  used  soapy 
water  and  some  greasy  substance  to  replace  the  oil, 
but  that  gave  bad  results.  I  then  gave  him  all  the 
table-oil,  which  was  used  with  better  result,  but  it 
was  not  sufficient  in  quantity:  I  had  only  about 
twenty  quarts.  At  5 :40  p.  m.,  the  motor  was  started. 
At  11:50  p.  M.^  another  and  final  accident  to  the 
motor  and  damages  to  the  dynamo.  Faignou  told 
me  that  he  could  not  make  the  engines  run.  The 
wireless  did  not  work.  It  was  impossible  for  me  to 
ask  for  help.  There  was  only  left  a  few  centimeters 
of  table-oil  on  board,  which  served  for  the  lubricat- 
ing of  the  auxiliary  motor,  which  I  made  use  of 
to  empty  the  hold  when  the  condition  of  the  sea 
did  not  permit  us  to  use  the  arm-pump. 

"I  was  completely  helpless;  headlong  toward  the 
southeast;  driven  by  the  wind  and  the  sea  without 


fa 


THE   PLUCKIEST   MAN   ALIVE     239 

any  exact  bearings.  I  estimated  that  I  was  at  this 
moment  N.  36  degrees  30  minutes,  W.  39  degrees. 

"/th  February:  I  have  remained  in  the  above-de- 
scribed condition  until  to-day  without  being  helped 
in  any  way ;  making  temporary  sails ;  emptying  the 
hold  every  day ;  anchoring  and  hauling  in  the  float- 
ing anchor  when  I  judged  it  necessary  to  use  it; 
sparing  the  drinking  water  as  much  as  possible,  ra- 
tioning the  crew  with  what  was  strictly  indispensa- 
ble with  a  view  to  a  long  voyage;  putting  up  and 
hauling  down  the  sails  according  to  the  condition  of 
the  weather  and  the  direction  of  the  wind,  and  head- 
ing east  by  the  compass  in  order  to  try  to  reach 
Archipel,  Azores. 

"I  met  four  ships,  three  of  which  were  very  dis- 
tant and  were  following  a  route  about  parallel  to 
mine,  so  that  they  did  not  come  near  me.  I  made 
distress  signals  to  them,  however,  but  they  did  not 
respond,  and  evidently  did  not  see  me. 

"8th  Fehrimry:  At  9:30  a.  m.,  I  perceived  a 
steamer  four  points  on  the  port  bow  and  heading  in 
such  a  way  as  to  cross  our  route  near  us.  Imme- 
diately I  had  the  distress  signals  hoisted  and  put  two 
volunteers  into  the  dory  to  try  to  intercept  the  route 
of  the  steamer  and  speak  to  her,  but,  when  we  ar- 
rived at  a  distance  of  about  five  miles,  the  steamer 
suddenly  changed  route  and  withdrew  at  full  speed. 
I  fired  a  volley  of  seven  shots  at  intervals  of  one 
minute,  but  she  did  not  answer  and  continued  dis- 


240  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

appearing.  At  1 1 :20,  I  hoisted  the  dory  and  con- 
tinued to  sail  toward  the  east,  with  a  spanker,  a 
main  jib  and  a  sort  of  jigger  on  the  foremast.  These 
sails  permitted  us  to  handle  the  ship  in  a  sort  of 
manner,  and  we  made  about  three  knots  when  the 
sea  was  smooth  and  there  was  a  fresh  breeze. 

"The  sails  were  made  of  tablecloths,  sheets  and 
bedspreads.  The  weather  often  prevented  their  use, 
for  they  were  not  perfectly  joined  together. 

"The  coal  for  cooking  had  given  out  on  the  26th 
of  January,  and  the  fire  in  the  galley  was  made  of 
wood  which  kept  the  aft-compartment  dry. 

"The  crew  continued  their  marvelous  conduct, 
keeping  habitually  calm  and  not  complaining  of  the 
restrictions  on  food  that  I  was  forced  to  impose  on 
them,  and  thus  showing  a  spirit  of  sacrifice  and 
abnegation. 

"i8th  February:  At  6 :30,  I  sighted  land  at  N.  55 
degrees.  Headed  for  it,  and  took  soundings  from 
time  to  time.  At  11  a.  m.,  I  manned  the  dory  with 
three  volunteers,  whose  mission  was  to  signal  to  land 
and  have  a  tug  brought  out.  At  one  p.  m.,  I  recog- 
nized clearly  Fayal  on  the  port  side  and  Pico  on  the 
starboard.  The  dingy  went  into  Port  La  Horta 
alongside  the  tug  Sin  Mac.  The  tug  took  the  dory 
on  board  and  came  out  to  tow  us.  At  3  :25  p.  m., 
she  took  us  into  tow  and  brought  us  into  Port  La 
Horta. 

"At  4 :35  p.  M.,  my  little  vessel  was  alongside  the 


THE  PLUCKIEST  MAN  ALIVE       241 

French  four-master  V ,  the  crew  intact  and  in 

good  heahh.    .    .    ." 

So  it  ends.  Alone  in  winter  seas,  Pulu  Hen's  tiny, 
fragile  boat  had  wandered  for  more  than  a  month 
under  desperate  conditions.  A  little  failing  in  fore- 
sight or  seamanship,  a  little  failing  in  courage,  and 
she  and  her  crew  would  all  have  been  lost.  Every 
one  thought  she  was  lost.  Then,  quite  as  if  she  did 
not  think  her  concfuct  extraordinary,  there  she  ap- 
peared, with  her  crazy  sails  of  tablecloths  and  sheets 
and  colored  bedspreads,  at  Horta  in  the  Azores,  her 
personnel  intact. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  her  master  should  be  given 
the  medaille  militaire?  Is  it  any  wonder  that,  de- 
scribing that  master's  feat  as  one  of  the  most  won- 
derful in  all  the  brave  history  of  the  sea,  an  Ameri- 
can Admiral  should  say  what  Admiral  Wilson 
said  ? — 

"You  are  the  kind  of  man  that  makes  me  proud  to 
be  a  sailor !" 


There's  a  girl  back  ashore  at  the  "Y" 

An'  she's  not  a  Society  Slob, 
An'  I'm  all  for  the  look  in  her  eye — 

She's  the  same  for  a  Four-Stripe  or  gob: 
She  is  straight,  she's  a  straight  that's  ace-high; 

That  girlie  is  on  to  her  job. 

There's  a  skirt  that  can  run  a  canteen! 

If  ever  a  fellow  gets  rough, 
She'll  give  him  one  look — he  goes  green, 

An'  he  knozvs  that  he's  gone  far  enougli: 
She's  a  peach,  she's  a  peach  of  a  queen — 

An'  she's  wise  to  that  sentiment-stuff. 

I  can't  get  her  out  of  my  head; 

She's  as  much  on  this  ship  as  that  scrup. 
I  licked  Bill  Visniski,  who  said 

That  she  looked  like  the  Wadsworths'  pet  pup. 
(She  looks  like  my  sister  that's  dead). 

What?  I'm  stuck  on  her,  am  I?  Shut  up! 
— Canteen-Memories. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  SOUL  OF  THE  SAILOR 

WITHOUT  question,  the  first  wonder  to  im- 
press the  civiHan  that  visits  the  base  of  our 
naval  effort  in  French  waters  is  the  good  feeHng 
that  obtains  there  between  the  French  and  the  Amer- 
icans. In  a  war  where  distinctive  nationahties  are 
alHed  against  a  common  foe,  there  is  nothing  more 
important  than  a  Haison,  a  common  understanding, 
between  the  alHes.  It  is  all  very  well  to  tie  two 
cats  together,  but  if  you  throw  the  rope  over  a 
clothesline,  the  cats  will  not  get  on  amicably.  The 
perfect  understanding  our  Navy  has  achieved :  the 
French  naval  officers  and  men  respect  and  admire 
the  men  and  officers  of  our  Navy,  and  the  population 
have  as  great  an  affection  for  our  sailors  as  they 
have  for  their  own. 

That  this  state  of  things  should  exist  in  a  city 
through  which,  during  a  few  years,  have  passed 
armies  French,  British,  Russian,  Portuguese,  Italian, 
negro  and  Cochin-Chinese,  is  due  in  part  to  the 
fact  that,  next  to  being  a  sailor  and  a  patriot,  the 
naval  officer  is  by  trade  a  traveler  and  a  cosmopoli- 
tan. It  is  no  less  due,  however,  to  the  tact  and 
courtesy  of  Admiral  Wilson  and  his  staff.    In  any 

243 


244  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

military  organization,  the  attitude  toward  a  given 
subject  on  the  part  of  his  commander  becomes, 
within  twenty-four  hours,  the  attitude  toward  that 
subject  to  the  last  man  in  the  command. 

On  my  arrival  at  the  Naval  Base,  Admiral  Wilson 
sent  his  aide  to  present  me  to  the  French  Admiral : 
"It  is  the  right  thing  to  do,"  he  said.  A  few  days 
later  he  added:  "This  is  a  French  city;  Admiral 
Moreau  is  the  French  admiral  here;  besides,  his 
rank  is  higher  than  mine :  I  would  not  think  of  is- 
suing an  important  order  without  first  consulting 
him." 

When  the  men  of  the  American  flagship  gave  a 
vaudeville  performance  in  the  local  municipal  thea- 
ter, they  sent  invitations  to  their  French  comrades 
and  reserved  for  Admiral  Moreau  the  same  sort  of 
box  that  they  reserved  for  their  own  Admiral.  Dur- 
ing the  performance,  the  two  commanders  ex- 
changed visits,  and  as  we  went  out  after  the  final 
curtain  had  fallen.  Admiral  Wilson  turned  to  his 
aide : 

"Sellards,"  said  he — that  aide,  by  the  way,  used 
to  be  a  professor  of  French  in  a  Pacific  Coast  uni- 
versity and  had  been  found  enlisted  as  a  common 
seaman — "Sellards,  say  to  Admiral  Moreau  that  we 
all  think  it  was  mighty  fine  of  him  to  have  come 
here." 

Ask  any  American  sailor  in  our  forces  in  France 
what  he  thinks  of  the  French  sailors;  he  will  answer 
that  they  are  the  "real  stuff."   What  he  thinks  of 


THE    SOUL   OF    THE    SAILOR      245 

most  of  the  French  children  you  do  not  have  to  ask 
him :  nearly  every  man  that  gets  shore-leave  gives  a 
regular  portion  of  his  time  to  playing  with  them.  In 
the  various  ports,  respectable  bourgeois  housewives 
have  formed  associations  for  the  entertainment  of 
our  men  and  have  thrown  their  houses  open  to  them : 
if  you  know  what  French  family-life  used  to  be, 
you  will  understand  what  a  social  revolution  this  in- 
dicates. Where  there  is  a  country  club,  officers,  in 
their  scant  leisure,  play  tennis  or  golf  with  the 
French  members:  "And,"  confessed  one  officer  to 
me,  "the  girls  play  better  tennis,  on  the  average, 
than  our  girls  at  home." 

On  the  anniversary  of  America's  entrance  into  the 
world-war,  the  French  naval  officers  gave  a  recep- 
tion to  the  American.  Admiral  Wilson  was  called 
on  to  speak ;  he  said  that,  since  his  arrival  in  France, 
Admiral  Moreau  had  been  a  father  to  him — and  he 
meant  it.  What  the  hosts  said  on  their  side  reflected 
the  same  sort  of  family  feeling — a  sort  that  I  heard 
echoed  among  them  when  I  went  into  their  sub- 
marines or  aboard  their  brave  little  submarine- 
chasers  :  the  French  Navy,  at  the  outbreak  of  the  con- 
flict, was  in  poor  condition,  so  far  as  material  was 
concerned,  in  which  three  pacifistic  administrations 
had  left  it ;  since  then,  with  the  means  at  hand,  it  has 
performed  prodigies;  yet  it  has,  for  our  officers  and 
men  and  for  their  infinitely  superior  equipment,  no 
word  of  envy,  no  word  of  any  kind  but  praise. 


246  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

Although  he  was  a  mere  lad — he  didn't  look  a 
day  over  seventeen — he  wore  the  uniform  of  a  sailor 
in  the  United  States  Navy.  He  had  come  into  this 
little  room,  opening  off  the  main  street  of  the  dreary 
French  port,  with  just  a  bit  of  a  swagger. 

"Des  cigarettes,"  he  said,  and  flung  upon  the 
counter  a  fifty-franc  bill. 

"What  brand  do  you  prefer?"  asked  the  girl  be- 
hind the  counter. 

Instantly  that  faint  hint  of  bravado  passed  from 
the  boyish  face,  leaving  it  clean  and  manly;  glad, 
too,  and  yet  wistful. 

"Gee!"  he  cried.  "You're  an  American,  aren't 
you?  Great  gims,  but  it's  good  to  hear  American 
talked  in  this  town." 

He  drew  out,  as  long  as  he  dared,  the  details  of 
his  purchase.  He  went  away  slowly,  and  presently 
returned  and  bought  some  more  cigarettes.  He  hung 
about  the  room,  and  then  bought  still  more.  He 
ostentatiously  pulled  out  a  shining  cigarette-rase 
from  a  pocket  and  filled  it. 

The  clerk  couldn't  help  a  smile.  "You  must 
smoke  a  great  deal,"  she  said. 

The  sailor  blushed.  "It's  not  that,"  he  confessed  ; 
"but — well,  just  to  hear  you  talk  is  like  home !"  He 
fumbled  with  the  cigarette-case.  "See  that?"  he 
said.  "I  got  it  to-day  from  my  folks  in  Boston. 
That  monogram — they're  my  initials.  I  guessed 
maybe  they'd  send  me  cigarettes,  but  I  didn't  expect 
the  case.    As  it  was,  the  case  came  alone." 


JHE   SOUL   OF   THE    SAILOR      247 

"It's  very  pretty,"  said  the  clerk. 

"It's  the  first  word  I've  had  from  home  for  three 
months,"  said  the  boy, 

"They  don't  write?" 

He  turned  away.  "I  guess  the  mails  are  all  balled 
up." 

"Still,  you  did  get  the  case." 

"Sure ;  but  I'd  rather  had  a  letter  than  a  hundred 
cigarette-cases.  Of  course  I'm  glad  I  enlisted ;  but, 
gee,  if  the  people  at  home  knew  how  bad  our  fellows 
wanted  letters  they'd  write  every  day,  even  if  they 
didn't  have  nothin'  to  say  except  'Yours  truly.'  If 
they  only  knew !" 

That  sailor  was  a  fair  example  of  our  young  sea- 
men in  France;  unfaltering  in  his  determination  to 
do  his  duty,  but  unremittingly  homesick.  The  room 
in  which  he  revealed  his  heart  was  one  of  many  such 
rooms  where  daily  many  of  our  enlisted  men  are 
moved  to  similar  confessions,  their  one  healthy  sub- 
stitute for  home  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  headquarters  at  a 
French  port. 

In  previous  chapters  I  have  tried  to  indicate  some- 
thing of  the  life  that  these  boys  lead  afloat.  They 
are  the  keepers-up  of  commerce,  the  food-bringers, 
the  sleepless  guides  and  guardians  of  our  troops 
that  cross  the  sea. 

These  results  are  achieved  only  by  labor  that  is 
hard,  dangerous — and  without  recorded  praise. 
There  are  days  when  men  have  to  stand  on  watch 
for  fourteen  hours  without  relief;  whole  voyages 


248  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

when  the  gun-crews  have  never  moved  more  than 
five  feet  from  their  guns,  snatching  sleep  on  the 
rain-washed  decks;  cruises  when  the  men  in  the 
fire-room  and  before  the  engines  have  never  once 
been  able  to  come  up  for  a  breath  of  fresh  air. 

Yet,  all  that  is  borne  without  a  whimper.  The 
sailors  read,  now  and  then,  a  stray  home  paper  and 
see  the  accounts  of  cheering  crowds  bidding  god- 
speed to  this  or  that  departing  regiment;  they  feel 
that  all  the  public's  heart  is  going  out  to  the  Army. 
They  don't  at  all  realize  their  own  devotion,  and 
their  attitude  is  almost  that  of  apology  for  not  serv- 
ing their  country  more  spectacularly.  They  will  tell 
you  they  are  glad  they  "jumped  to  the  guns,"  but 
every  mail  that  arrives  brings  news  of  friends  that 
stayed  behind  and  have  won  commissions  at  the  re- 
serve officers'  training  camps. 

And  then  the  ship  comes  back  to  port,  and  there 
are  liberty  parties  going  ashore.  .  .  . 

The  British  sailor  is  given  his  drink-ration;  the 
British  Y.  M.  C.  A.  serves  light  beer.  It  isn't  thus 
with  our  men.  At  sea  there  obtains  only  the  taut 
rule  of  fiat  virtue,  and  the  man  that  goes  ashore  is 
his  own  master.  Do  you  begin  to  see  now  the  prob- 
lem? 

There  was  a  time  when  that  problem  was  serious. 
Most  of  the  sailors  were  hopelessly  ignorant  of  the 
value  of  French  money:  they  handed  out  their  big- 
gest bill  and  took  whatever  change  was  vouchsafed 
them.    In  the  same  spirit,  some  of  them  used  to  face 


THE    SOUL   OF    THE    SAILOR      249 

the  life  of  the  town:  the  lodgings,  the  shops,  the 
games,  the  wine — and  the  women.  Ever}'  morning 
a  few  girls — wreckage  cast  upon  that  shore — would 
enter  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  and  calmly  present  large 
American  bills  for  the  French  equivalent.  It  took 
some  thinking  and  acting  on  the  part  of  the  Admiral 
and  his  staff  to  remedy  this  condition.  As  to  their 
cause,  I  heard  a  warrant  officer  discussing  that  with 
a  man  of  many  enlistments : 

"The  seafaring  man's  really  more  religious  than 
any  other  sort,"  he  said;  "but  nobody  gives  him  a 
fair  chance  to  show  it,  I've  been  in  Turkey  and  if  I 
lived  there  regular,  I'd  be  a  Mohammedan,  I  was 
disgusted  with  Christians  before  I  struck  this  Y.  iM. 
C.  A.  joint,  and  I  didn't  call  Christianity  neceSvSarily 
the  best  of  religions,  either.  Drink?  No,  I  don't 
drink — tjiuch — and  neither  does  any  other  Navy 
man.  It's  only  a  few  of  these  kids  that  do,  and  they 
don't  keep  it  up. 

"The  Navy's  been  increased  from  fifty  thousand 
to  more'n  four  hundred  thousand  men;  what  can 
people  expect  from  a  lot  of  boys  that  have  never  left 
their  mothers  before?  Half  of  them  are  smoking 
their  first  cigarettes ;  of  course  they  don't  know  yet 
how  to  use  French  wine.  Any  American  sailorman 
will  get  homesick  after  a  week  of  it,  and  it's  just 
homesickness  that's  the  matter  v/ith  these  kids;  if 
they  can't  be  cured  of  that  disease,  they'll  do  some- 
thing to  forget  it." 

To  be  homesick — and,  if  you  remember  3'our  first 


250  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

boarding-school  days,  after  your  mother  had  kissed 
you  good-by  and  cried  a  little  and  told  you  to  send 
home  all  your  socks  for  mending,  and  your  father 
had  shaken  hands  with  you  and  cleared  his  throat 
and  said  you'd  be  coming  back  to  put  him  out  of 
business,  and  you'd  held  your  head  high  and  joked — 
if  you  remember  that,  you  will  agree  with  me  that  to 
be  homesick  is  to  be  as  miserable  as  it  is  possible  for 
the  human  being  to  become.  But  to  be  homesick 
and  yet  to  give  a  home  to  the  homeless  is  to  be 
something  very  nearly  heroic. 

I  came  across  three  little  children — boys — stand- 
ing in  a  doonvay  on  a  quiet  street,  the  oldest  perhaps 
twelve,  the  youngest  not  a  day  over  five.  They 
would  have  been  remarkable  among  the  other  chil- 
dren at  large  of  this  port  if  only  for  their  clean- 
liness and  for  the  cleanliness  of  the  elderly  woman 
that  was  manifestly  caring  for  them;  they  were  the 
more  remarkable  because  each  wore  a  sailor's  cap, 
on  the  band  of  which  was  inscribed  the  name  of  a 
certain  American  boat,  and  because  they  were  all 
dressed  in  an  infantile  replica  of  the  uniform  of  able 
seaman  in  the  United  States  Navy. 

They  were  shy  little  boys,  but  the  woman  in 
charge  of  them  explained  their  habiliments. 

"But  yes,  monsieur,  they  are  all  that  is  left  of  a 
family.  The  father  was  killed  at  Verdun,  the 
mother  died  in  an  accident  at  a  factory  of  muni- 
tions; so  the  good  sailors  of  one  of  your  country's 
ships  have  adopted  them  and  are  keeping  them  and 


THE    SOUL   OF    THE    SAILOR      251 

will  educate  them.  They  have  rented  for  them  rooms, 
and  I  attend  to  those,  and  whenever  their  ship  is 
in  port,  those  sailors,  they  fail  not  to  come  here  and 
receive  word  of  their  wards,  and  they  give  them 
chocolates  until  the  litde  ones  are  ill." 

One  Y.  M.  C.  A.  woman  I  met  late  one  night  on 
the  street  with  thirty  hydro-aviation  men  in  tow. 
She  was  just  bidding  them  good-by  and  pointing 
the  way. 

"They  were  lost,"  she  laughingly  explained  when 
I  asked  how  she  happened  to  have  such  a  following. 
They  landed  from  America  day  before  yesterday 
and  were  assigned  here.  I  met  them  on  the  train, 
and,  as  they  were  coming  here,  I  volunteered  to 
guide  them.  They  had  their  destination  written 
down  and  asked  me  if  I  knew  anything  about  their 
barracks. 

-The  C ,"  I  said.     "Why,  the  C is  a 

ship.    You  don't  go  to  land  barracks  at  all." 

"You  should  have  seen  their  faces.  Of  course, 
it's  a  stationary  ship,  but  I  believe  they  thought  they 
were  destined  to  run  the  dangers  of  the  Atlantic  all 
over  again !" 

There  are  Y.  M.  C.  A.  establishments  in  every 
French  port  that  is  used  by  our  Navy.  Evening  en- 
tertainments (I  remember  one  given  by  the  British 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  for  the  American  Y.  M.  C.  A.'s  patrons 
in  the  rooms  of  the  French  Foyer  du  Soldat)  ;  a 
reading-room  full  of  magazines — pretty  old  ones,  it's 
true — and  a  growing  library ;  free  writing  materials ; 


252  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

a  piano,  around  which  is  grouped  a  day-long  chorus 
of  sailormen;  moving-picture  shows,  a  hall  for 
basket  ball,  a  baseball  grounds,  fifty  clean  beds  at 
a  franc  apiece  a  night — and  a  clean  bed  is  a  luxury 
as  well  as  a  moral  force — an  apartment  house  for 
seventeen  or  so  petty  officers  permanently  employed 
ashore ;  a  phonograph,  over  which  I've  seen  a  lonely 
lad  sit  all  afternoon  running  off  songs  reminiscent 
of  his  childhood;  a  canteen  that  sells  chewing  gum, 
cigarettes  and  candy — these  may  sound  like  trifles  to 
Americans  at  home,  but  to  the  American  sailor 
abroad,  to  whom  only  the  Navy  Canteen  and  the 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  provides  them,  they  become  large  and 
vital.    They  become  America. 

"They're  the  only  two  places  we  can  get  any  to- 
bacco at  all." 

"There's  good  grub  on  our  tub,  but  not  enough 
that's  sweet.  Gimme  some  more  of  those  Huyler's 
gumdrops." 

"What's  this?  Lemonade?  Yes;  but  what's  it 
made  of?  Citron  syrup  and  seltzer!  And  you  call 
that  lemonade f  Oh,  well,  give  us  another  glass  of 
it!  It  probably  won't  poison  us.  When  are  you 
goin'  to  get  in  that  soda-fountain?" 

If  I  heard  these  comments  once  in  the  canteen, 
or  the  naval  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  I  heard  them  a  dozen  times. 
Unbelievable  quantities  of  chocolate  are  sold  in  a 
form  that  may  be  easily  heated  and  drunk  during 
night  watches  at  sea,  and  the  millionaire  that  wants 


Y-workers  are  detailed  to  the  various  ships 


to 


m 


bo 

3 


THE   SOUL   OF   THE   SAILOR      253 

to  do  effective  work  against  alcoholism  should  do- 
nate soda-fountains  and  hot  chocolate  machines  and 
orangeade  mixers  to  the  canteens  in  these  ports. 

One  innovation  recently  introduced  is  thus  far 
working  well.  Parties  of  young  French  women  of 
the  bourgeois  class  are  formed,  under  maternal 
chaperonage,  to  meet  sailors  of  their  own  sort  that 
have  some  knowledge  of  the  French  language.  It 
is  at  these  gatherings  that  the  sailor  talks  most 
freely,  and  most  lightly,  of  his  work. 

"Looking  for  subs?"  I  heard  one  say  to  his  newly 
met  companion,  ''I'm  going  blind  doing  it !  There 
is  the  sub  that  makes  up  to  look  like  a  sailing  vessel, 
and  the  one  that  hides  its  periscope  behind  an  imita- 
tion shark  fin,  and  now  they've  got  one  that  spouts 
water  like  a  whale.  The  porpoise  drive  us  crazy; 
something  came  dashing  at  our  boat  the  other  day ; 
its  track  was  exactly  like  a  torpedo's.  Humphreys 
saw  it  first.    He  pointed  it  out  to  me. 

*'  'We're  gone  this  time !' ''  he  yelled. 

"Then  it  jumped,  and  we  saw  it  was  a  porpoise. 
We  call  porpoises  'Humphreys  torpedoes'  now." 

His  nearest  shipmate  took  up  the  tale : 

"The  fellows  on  the had  a  queer  experience 

the  other  day.  They  really  did  sight  a  sub.  One 
of  'em  was  handy  with  his  camera  and  got  a  picture 
of  her  betore  she  submerged.  He  came  ashore  and 
showed  it.  He  was  so  proud  of  being  quick  on  the 
kodak-trigger  that  he  didn't  realize  the  picture  was 


254  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

evidence  of  his  ship's  being  just  that  slow  with  her 
guns." 

The  French  girl  wanted  to  know  about  rescues 
at  sea. 

"Last  trip,"  she  was  informed,  "we  picked  up 
three  small  boats  with  fifty-nine  men  in  them.  We 
laid  them  over  the  boilers  to  thaw  out.  Then  we  fed 
them  hot  soup  to  stop  their  teeth  from  chattering, 
and  lent  them  some  dry  clothes.  I  guess  that's 
about  all." 

His  companion  laughed. 

"Why  don't  you  tell  the  rest?" 

"Oh,  what's  the  good?" 

"Then  I  will.  Our  crew's  clothes  were  so  much 
better  than  the  slops  the  rescued  men  owned  that 
most  of  them  forgot  to  change  back.  If  you  see  any 
stray  uniforms  walking  around  this  town,  they're 
ours." 

There  is  a  story  told  in  one  port,  where  Vincent 
Astor  has  lived,  to  the  effect  that  he  was  complain- 
ing of  the  restaurant  in  his  hotel,  the  most  expensive 
hotel  that  the  town  could  boast. 

"You  can't  get  a  really  good  meal  there,"  said 
Astor. 

His  auditor  happened  to  be  satisfactorily  fresh 
from  beef  and  onions  and  apple-pie.  "I  just  now 
had  a  good  dinner  at  the  Y.  M.  C.  A."  he  ventured. 

"Oh,  there,"  said  Astor.  "Of  course,  you  did. 
The  Y.  M.  C.  A.  is  the  best  eating-place  in  town." 

Mr.  Astor  ought  to  know,  because  that  eating- 


THE   SOUL   OF   THE   SAILOR      255 

place  is  of  his  own  and  Mrs.  Astor's  making.  They 
bought  and  turned  over  to  the  Association  the  one 
really  good  restaurant  that  they  could  find.  For  my 
part,  I  heard  an  endorsement  of  its  cuisine  that  car- 
ried all  the  weight  of  its  donor's : 

"You  can  get  a  real  meal  there,"  a  sailor  told  me. 
"No  canned  Bill  or  beans,  but  scrambled  eggs  and 
home-made  fried  potatoes  and  steak  and  onions  and 
butter  that  doesn't  always  taste  as  if  it  came  out  of 
a  tin." 

That  is  the  appeal  in  the  sign,  too : 

NO  NAVY 

Beans,  Hardtack  or  Canned  Bill 

Sold  Here! 

It  is  said  that  Mrs.  Astor  used  to  help  wait  on  ta- 
ble when  the  service  was  shorthanded,  and  that  one 
of  the  first  persons  upon  whom  she  waited  was  a 
newly  enlisted  man  in  the  United  States  Navy,  who, 
until  a  month  previous,  had  been  the  dining-room 
steward  on  Mrs.  Astor's  own  yacht. 

"Gee,"  the  steward  is  reported  to  have  com- 
mented, "when  I  used  to  wait  on  her,  I  had  to  wear 
evening  clothes !" 

I  was  standing  on  the  bridge  of  a  converted  yacht 
in  harbour.    The  navigation  officer  was  with  me. 

"That  boy,"  he  said,  as  he  nodded  to  a  blackened, 
barefoot  lad  emerging  from  a  hatchway,  "got  hon- 
ours in  French  at  Yale  last  spring." 


256  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

"And  he's  here  as  a  common  seaman?"  I  won- 
dered. 

"As  a  coal-heaver !"  I  was  corrected. 

Here  is  another  example : 

To  an  orderly  entertainment  at  a  "Y"  hut  came 
one  night  a  brilliantly-illuminated  boatswain's  mate. 
He  was  a  splendid  specimen  of  physical  manhood, 
six  feet  three  and  as  hard  as  nails ;  but  he  was  intent 
on  "starting  something."  He  stopped,  with  one  bel- 
lowing command,  the  singer  on  the  stage.  He 
knocked  down  two  of  his  protesting  friends,  spilled 
a  crowded  bench  and  undulated  up  to  the  secretary 
in  charge,  with  the  majesty  of  a  breaker  sweeping 
toward  the  beach. 

*T'm  going  to  break  up  this  show,"  he  said. 

It  looked  very  much  as  if  he  would,  too. 

Now,  the  secretary  in  charge  was  a  quiet,  unas- 
suming man.  He  had  done  wonders  in  his  work 
among  our  fleet  in  French  waters,  but  he  spoke  in  a 
small  voice  and  moved  gently. 

"H  I  were  you,"  said  the  secretary,  "I  wouldn't 
interfere." 

"The  hell  you  wouldn't!"  said  the  boatswain's 
mate  and  shook  a  mighty  fist. 

"Please  don't,"  said  the  secretary. 

The  big  fist  shot  forward. 

It  didn't  hit  anything.  It  was  shunted  aside,  as 
a  little  twist  of  the  slim  switch  shunts  a  train  of 
loaded  coal-cars.  It  dragged  the  boatswain's  mate 
after  it  into  vacant  space,  and,  as  the  boatswain's 


THE    SOUL   OF   THE   SAILOR      257 

mate  went  by,  something  caught  him — something 
uncommonly  Hke  an  express  engine — on  the  point  of 
the  jaw  and  sent  him  smashing  to  the  floor. 

Then  the  quiet  secretary  picked  the  giant  up  in 
his  arms  and  carried  him  to  a  back  room,  of  which 
the  two  were  the  only  occupants. 

"I  hope  I  haven't  hurt  you,"  said  the  secretary. 
*T  tried  not  to." 

The  secretary  was  a  Presbyterian  minister.  He 
was  also  a  Colorado  rancher.  And  also  he  had  been 
the  best  boxer  in  Princeton  during  his  day  there. 
His  name  is  O.  F.  Gardner. 

He  nursed  that  boatswain's  mate  back  to  sobriety 
and  got  him  on  his  ship  in  time  to  escape  reprimand. 
The  next  night  the  sailor  turned  up  again  at  the 
*'Y"  building. 

*T've  come  here  to  apologize,"  he  said. 

"That's  all  right,"  said  the  secretary. 

"No,  it  ain't,"  the  sailor  persisted.  "I  made  a 
damned  nuisance  of  myself  before  all  this  crowd, 
and  it's  before  the  whole  crowd  that  I've  got  to 
apologize.    Here,  you  swipes!"  he  bellowed. 

Every  man  in  the  room  fell  silent.  The  boat- 
swain's mate  addressed  them : 

"I  want  to  tell  you  fellows,"  he  said,  "that  I  was 
a  fool  last  night  and  got  what  was  comin'  to  me; 
but  I'm  not  such  a  fool  but  what  I  can  learn  a  les- 
son: I'm  cuttin'  out  the  booze.  That  man  there 
treated  me  square  and  saved  me  from  trouble  aboard 
ship,  and,  after  to-night,  if  any  slob  tries  to  get  fresh 


258  OUR  NAVY  AT  WORK 

around  this  place,  why,  any  such  guy's  got  to  tackle 
the  two  of  us."  .... 

Some  college  men  and  some  men  that  have  hardly 
been  to  school  at  all,  a  group  of  millionaires  and  a 
scattering  of  roughnecks;  but  every  one  sound  at 
heart  and  brave  in  action — these  make  up  the  per- 
sonnel of  the  U.  S.  fleets  in  French  waters.  The 
worst  aren't  bad;  the  worst  are  only  lonely.  The 
best  are  the  best  America  produces.  All  are  cour- 
ageously and  unmurmuringly  enduring  a  dangerous 
and,  what  is  more,  a  hideously  monotonous  life 
afloat;  those  are  few  indeed  who  succumb  to  any 
temptation  of  emotional  reaction  ashore. 


FINIS 

Wise  to  what  the  wash  is 

And  the  chance  we  take. 
Knowing  that  the  Boche  is 

Always  in  our  wake. 
Though  I'm  strong  on  livin', 

I've  got  one  word  more: 
If  my  life  I'm  givin', 

Please,  no  grave  ashore! 

I'm  no  grubby  tailor; 

I'm  no  lazvyer-shark; 
I  am  just  a  sailor: 

Let  a  gob  embark! 
That's  the  zvay  I'd  sooner 

Have  you  launch  me — do; 
I  zvill  be  the  schooner. 

Captain,  mate  an'  crezv. 

When  it  comes  to  dyin'. 
Drop  me  overside, 

Where  the  scud  is  flyin'. 
Where  the  dolphins  ride; 

Let  me  find  the  furrozv. 
Flowing  foamy-free — 

Done  my  bit,  an'  through  with  it- 
Send  me  Home  to  Sea! 


3  1158  00824  5838 

UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  UBRARYFACILI^^^ 


AA    000  818  330    3 


